If there’s one thing you can count on in life, it’s that the younger generations are always going to think they’re smarter than the older generations. Since the beginning of time, kids have been convinced that they’re smarter than their parents were, and this attitude carries over into the rest of the population. You’ve probably heard the song that has a line that says, “Every generation blames the one before.” Indeed they do, and they bemoan how much better they would have done everything. One reason young people think they know so much is because they know what they know, but don’t have a way to conceptualize how much they still have to learn. The world around us grows larger as we get older and we begin to realize that a lot of wisdom has to do with simply knowing that you don’t know everything. The fact is, with age comes some wisdom and I’m old enough to understand that I knew very little when I was young and that people who are 80 and 90 know a lot more than I do. In the joke below, you can see it in action as a young construction worker thought he could outsmart an older man.
A strong young man at a construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength.
He made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen.
After several minutes, the older worker had enough.
‘Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is,’ he said.
‘ I will bet a week’s wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that building that you won’t be able to wheel back.’
‘You’re on, old man,’ the braggart replied. Let’s see you do it.’
The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles.
Then, nodding to the young man, he said,
‘All right, dummy get in.’
