>By whom, where and when? I've been to three commencement speeches in the last several years, and even there didn't hear this. As a baby boomer and parent of a millenial, I sure as hell didn't aim to convey that message.
When I was growing up it was prevalent in the media and in schools. Not all parents bought into it of course -- perhaps even the majority of them didn't -- but if the TV says something and your parents don't tell you it's a lie, it must be true right? What is a 5-10 year old's capacity to tell fact from fiction, especially if an authority figure (like a teacher or someone on TV) is saying it?
I was fortunate enough to be able to figure out at a young age that not everyone could grow up to be President or an astronaut and to temper my expectations accordingly. But should it be required skills to figure that out WELL before you hit puberty? Should that be the standard by which all persons are judged?
By the time a commencement speech has rolled around it's already a decade or two too late. Minds have been impressed with crazy ideas that have little/no bearing on how the world ACTUALLY works. Some people take years to un-learn these silly notions; others never do.
You might not have aimed to convey that message. You might have done a good job explaining to your kids that life is hard and success isn't becoming President but making your own way in life. But even if you did that, they might have still picked up enough nonsense elsewhere to believe it.
When I was growing up it was prevalent in the media and in schools. Not all parents bought into it of course -- perhaps even the majority of them didn't -- but if the TV says something and your parents don't tell you it's a lie, it must be true right? What is a 5-10 year old's capacity to tell fact from fiction, especially if an authority figure (like a teacher or someone on TV) is saying it?
I was fortunate enough to be able to figure out at a young age that not everyone could grow up to be President or an astronaut and to temper my expectations accordingly. But should it be required skills to figure that out WELL before you hit puberty? Should that be the standard by which all persons are judged?
By the time a commencement speech has rolled around it's already a decade or two too late. Minds have been impressed with crazy ideas that have little/no bearing on how the world ACTUALLY works. Some people take years to un-learn these silly notions; others never do.
You might not have aimed to convey that message. You might have done a good job explaining to your kids that life is hard and success isn't becoming President but making your own way in life. But even if you did that, they might have still picked up enough nonsense elsewhere to believe it.
Other phrases of a similarly unfortunate bent:
"Follow your dreams"
"Reach for the stars"
"Do what you love"
If you don't believe me that this is prevalent in culture, check out Google n-grams in books. It's imperfect of course but it's illustrative: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=follow+your+dr...