“I used to think that anyone doing something weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people who call others weird who are weird.”
-Paul McCartney

I thought about writing this one not long after Is there a better name for: Midlife Crisis?.

As the youngest sibling, I subtly learned the art of observation.

I’d watch my older brother closely.

What did he do that pleased my parents?

What did he do that elicited a less-than-favorable response?

The refined “do this, not that” sensitivity has served me well. As time passes, I remind myself to continue to be a lifelong observer.

I bring up “observation” following Paul McCartney’s quote because, with each passing year and as time gifts experience, my view of life has zoomed out and the forest is becoming more in focus than the trees.

I’m recognizing things around me that I never had before.

Today, I observe two different spectrums of experience: my children and my parents.

My children are discovering new things every day. The world is foreign to them, and each new experience shapes their conceptual understanding of their surroundings.

My parents, youthful as they may be for their age, have had a lifetime of experiences, and their lens on the world has been formed. This is not to say that they don’t continue to educate themselves and explore the world. They are just not absorbing the same amount of “experience” that their grandchildren are.

I’m smack dab in the middle!

Generationally speaking, I feel like the cream filling of an Oreo, sandwiched between two cookies.

I relate to both the younger and older crowds. However, with each passing year, I inch further into the “older crowd.”

I find it more challenging to keep up with the latest trends. I finally got into skinny jeans! I don’t have a TikTok account or keep up with the latest trends. I don’t care to put the effort in.

Is this what leads to white New Balances (Dad shoes) and cargo pants (they’re very utilitarian)?

Am I missing out?

Maybe

At a recent family gathering hosted in our backyard, I posed this question:

How would you categorize different generations and their specific traits?

I stayed quiet and listened to the responses. They began as thoughtful and analytical, but it didn’t take long for the tide to turn.

The conversation inevitably steered toward politics, work ethic, and appreciation (or lack thereof) and turned relatively negative.

At some point I got up to clean the grill off (I had already done it earlier but just wanted out of the conversation), feeling ashamed for introducing such a hot topic into an otherwise fun pool party.

I dare you to give this exercise a try and see where it goes.

I’ve since posed it to different groups of friends. In my experience, the older crowd will have a longer, more opinionated response, while the younger crowd will roll their eyes and probably not have as much to add.

Unfortunately, there is an us against them stigma that causes a rift between the generations. You may have heard the following terms:

“OK Boomer”

“Millennials are snowflakes”

These are memes and words that have scoured backyard barbecues and common culture.

Being smack-dab in the middle, I ask, Can’t we all just get along?

To help understand the “classifications of generations,” I did some basic research, and here’s what I found:

The following categorizations are paraphrased from kasasa.com.

Baby Boomer

Birth Years: 1946 to 1964

Size: 71.6 million

Shaping Events: Post-WWII optimism, the cold war, and the hippie movement

Current Financial Practice: managing retirement with life expectancies on the rise

Generation X

Birth Years: 1965 to 1980

Size: 65.2 million

Shaping Events: End of the cold war, Rise of personal computing, dot-com Bubble

Current Financial Practice: Carrying the highest debt load while still raising children and saving for retirement

Millenials

Birth Years: 1980–1996

Size: 72.1 million

Shaping Events: The Great Recession, technological explosion of the internet and social media, and 9/11

Current Financial Practice: Massive student debt causes this generation to delay major life purchases

Gen Z

Birth Years: 1997 to 2012

Size: 68 Million

Shaping Events: Smartphones, social media, never knowing a country not at war, seeing the financial struggles of their parents (Gen X), the Pandemic

So now that we can categorize the generations, let’s figure out how we might perhaps bridge the generational divide.

First, let’s understand why we categorize generations in the first place.

Our brains are wired for classification

According to farthertogo.com, human beings think in terms of stereotypes for good reasons. Without mental shortcuts, we simply couldn’t get by. There is just too much information to process, and we often have to be quite crude in how we filter it.

What I found from this article is that our brain puts things into categories for a specific reason.

As strange as it may feel to type this: stereotypes are not wrong. Stereotypes are an evolutionary tool.

For instance

So how can we evolve?

I believe it is the ability to practice empathy.

Empathy (em-puh-thee): The psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Translation: put yourself in another person’s shoes

At this point, you may be thinking, Where the heck is he going with this?

We’re getting there. Stick with me; this is the buildup to our realization.

We categorize age groups into generations

Generations are all unique, evolving to take on different characteristics based on the environment that they’ve grown up in and the world that they've experienced.

This applies not only to age but also to gender, race, socio-economic environment, and so on.

How is it that two human beings (of different generations) can look at the same thing and yet have completely different interpretations?

Career

Family

Possessions

…and so on

Maybe they have different perspectives?

Is this an old woman with a shawl or a young woman with a necklace, looking away?

It all depends on your perspective!

Next time your observation turns into criticism, practice a little empathy. You may be making a judgment solely from your own point of view.

Based on the experiences listed for each generation, it’s clear why they may have differing perspectives of the world around them. These experiences form the lens that one uses to view the world around them.

The sooner we accept and value another’s perspective, the sooner we may be more empathetic as to why they may feel that way.

The undisputed champion of the world is: TIME

Time has never lost and will never lose.

There will be a day when Gen Z says, “It’s not like it used to be back in my day.”

Hey, everyone not in the Baby Boomer generation, remember this the next time you roll your eyes at Grandma or Grandpa when they utter the above sentiment.

Time is coming for you too!

Our lives are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I am reminded of this as I look out at the world from my airplane window, seeing the big rigs look like ants and the mountains look like speed bumps.

Not my picture. I’m currently in the aisle seat, getting my elbows punished by the flight attendant cart.

With time being such a precious commodity, why waste it passing judgment on others?

Practice some empathy, take a walk in someone else’s shoes, and enjoy the beauty of “weird”.

Speaking of shoes, I look forward to the day that I rock those New Balances, and I wouldn’t mind the return of pleated pants... They were much more comfortable than my skinny jeans!

https://www.cleareyes.com/eye-care-blog/201610/types-optical-illusions

https://www.kasasa.com/blog/boomers-gen-x-gen-y-gen-z-and-gen-a-explained

https://www.zenefits.com/workest/generations-in-the-workplace-boomers-gen-x-gen-y-and-gen-z-explained/

https://farthertogo.com/why-do-we-categorize-stereotype-and-label-each-other/

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/empathy

Understanding the generational divide