Hello.
Here's an old guy's view of all this. First of all, young people got shafted. The leaders and winners and opinion makers are in no position to give advice. They've ruined everything including the planet itself.
Instead of dancing to the beat of the people in charge, you should be asking the "leaders" to explain themselves.
HERE's what YOU should be telling the "leaders."
1. How can you be giving advice on what to buy, how to earn money, how to live...when you can't even pass along a habitable planet to the next generation.
2. Has any group of leaders and systems (political and economic) ever failed as catastrophically at you? Why should anybody follow you? Why don't you resign? Aren't you embarrassed?
And you should reject the values and "milestones" of a society with sick values. Think about it: the society values greed, and selfishness, and (increasingly) brutality. It uses human beings as human RESOURCES and the Earth itself as something to consume and profit from—and as a giant toilet.
Stop caring about what other people think. Do what's RIGHT and reject what's WRONG. The leaders and most adults are clueless. Hey, in the 1960s, THEY were all convinced that young people should all go to Vietnam to fight commies. Yeah, they were THAT stupid. And sadly, our leaders haven't gotten any smarter since then.
The. youngest few generations, for all the vilification, are the greatest generations. They gave us Greta Thunberg and the Parkland Kids. They gave us people who are leaving the church because they don't take moral instruction from pedophiles. They HAVE good values; but they have the challenge of living in a world that values and rewards bad values.
Sadly, fate has given you a big job. YOU will need to defy, disobey and transform society itself. You will need to organize yourselves into twos and threes, working together and speaking out. Refusing to pay college loans. Working in cooperatives instead of corporation. Doing without CRAP which is 90% of what this society sells you.
You can and will learn to support one another, create your own entertainment. You will grow and cook food together. You will live by the values that the "leaders" espouse but they forcefully reject in word and deed.
You will love one another. You will feed the hungry and care for the sick. You will welcome the stranger and the foreigner. But you won't do this because any deity, or worse, religious institutions tell you to. You will do this because you know right from wrong.
You may not be prosperous, at least in the modern sense. But you will be more alive and have more to be thankful for than the fools who have been ruining everything. They have empty souls because they compete instead of relate. You will embrace humanity and Nature.
I believe in the young. Completely.
