The Vitality Of The Ability Not To Give Up The Materialistic And to Appreciate The Immaterial

Life derives its vitality from the ability to look past the materialistic and value the intangibles. Privileged depicts a term containing multiple meanings, including a position in society, the ability of one to hold the freedom to take part in something, or the amount of wealth one possesses. All these attributes contribute to the behavior, attitude, and success of young people. In society today, what Americans seem to value and treasure most emerges as their sense of privilege. People want things and desire to be on top and in control. Contrary to popular belief, privilege leads young people to miss out on life lessons and societal values and causes young people to lack respect for others because of their presumptuous attitudes toward life.

Privilege holds the ability to cause young people never to encounter real-life problems because they own money to cover any issues that appear. The parents in a young person’s life play a huge role in this factor. Parents may shelter their kids from having to deal with their troubles by paying for and covering up their problems and responsibilities with threats to authority or simply silencing the issue with funds. In the story, The Glass Castle, the children’s father’s very idealistic perspective on life and frequent beliefs in taking huge, detrimental risks induced devastating effects on his wife and children. Without a worthy father figure in their lives who “seemed hell-bent on destroying himself,” the children, at such a young age, needed to figure out how to master independence and become leaders for themselves and their siblings.

Their distinguished sense of self allowed them to move away from their parents at the youngest age they contained the ability to live on their own because they were “afraid [their father] was going to pull [them] all down with him”. The children, ready to take on the world, aware and ready for any trials they may face, had endured the worst, while becoming experienced at finding solutions to life’s problems. These children never had anything handed to them, and this assiduously prepared them to go out and earn their own bread as if it were their own responsibility. Because it was. In a recent study conducted by The Telegraph, scientists researched depression in teens and found that “children from homes with an annual income of more than $130,000 a year were suffering anxiety and depression at twice the normal rate of their less well-off peers” (Evans).

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Researchers also found trends and positive correlations with affluence and rising suicide rates, eating disorders, etc. When parents get sucked into the obsession of wealth, they may apply a vast amount of pressure on their children to keep the value of their family name and cause kids to feel overpowered and feel a lot of weight on their shoulders. This causes them to fall into depression and/or turn to drugs or alcohol because of the desire and necessary fulfillment for deep, loving relationships within the child’s family becoming replaced with surfaced relationships caused by the emphasis on perfection and money.

Privilege holds the ability to place one in a shielded place and influence a lost sense of reality. Possessing so much money may cause kids, when released to the real world away from their parents, to expect respect, have everything handed to them, and above all else, more. Because of their affluence, they expect that they deserve more than others because their parents sheltered them all their lives. Samurai Marco, a young adult in his early forties, wrote an article reflecting on his difficulties leaving the security and fabricated life his parents succeeded in creating for him. After his parents released him into the real world, he noted that life “ha[d] been hard for [him]. [His] whole life, [he’d] been able to do whatever [he] want[ed]” (Marco).

This unrealistic and unprepared approach to real-life causes young adults to nurture pompous attitudes toward others and put emphasis on material things, causing them to become surfaced, and judgmental, and to feel the need to surround themselves solely with people possessing a similar amount of wealth as themselves. Similarly, these types of people may blindly allow themselves to be taken advantage of because of others’ desire to reap the benefits of a relationship containing no substance other than monetary gratification, leading to superficial pleasures. Marco started to realize his girlfriend held ulterior motives in their relationship, causing him, with a broken heart, to leave her. He later found himself lacking any relationship embodying any depth, except with his brother, who also experienced similar issues as Marco. However, his brother actually took a different route in dealing with his dilemmas.

He “became involved with, just, the wrong people... people who you could have fun with, but that was about it… they never had [his] back” (Marco). He confessed to all the trouble he got into as a teenager because he contained so much anger and bottled up his emotions, leaving him with a lost perception of what he wanted, who he was, or what his purpose was. One who remains sheltered by their parents and feels restricted all their lives may crave the need for freedom. They begin to rebel just to rebel because of the lack of restrictions and consequences for their behavior. They feel lost and confused and desire something of preeminent value in their lives. This leads to distant relationships within their families because of the need for lying, sneaking around, and other insubordinate habits and decisions.

One may argue that privileges carry the capability to open the eyes of young people to realize how richly blessed they are so that they may use their wealth to help those in need and contribute to community services. However, the weakness in that argument is that money in the hands of the wealthy seems to contain less value than money in the hands of those less privileged, and may be spent so freely and effortlessly, only having the ability to put a Band-Aid over problems, making it easier for them to live life feeling good about themselves instead of really solving problems and helping the less fortunate. There may be a small fraction of the privileged who spend some time sacrificing their time for others, such as volunteering time to a homeless shelter, providing care packages for those in the hospital, or developing relationships with others and those in need of support. Nonetheless, for the other 99% of the privileged, they become too wrapped up in themselves, their people, and their belongings to think twice about stepping outside of their perfect life to make time and give effort to others.

Therefore, privilege may lead young people to live in their own little bubbles and isolate themselves to where they are not learning life lessons and coming in contact with challenges in their lives. Having this false conception of the world bears the ability later to destroy one’s life and leave them feeling empty and lacking vital relationships. Money and societal positions, only temporal, fleeting things, withhold no ability to determine self-worth and may be lost in a moment. The true value lies in relationships and the intangibles in life that build character and inculcate life lessons to incite people to grow and positively influence the world.

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