I think the reason young people are so annoying is that we old people do remember being that dumb. But we had fewer resources so we can’t figure out how young people now can be as dumb as we were then.

Some of it is the same as it was for us. We didn’t have a clue as to how to use what was available. School prepares you to be able to learn a job but doesn’t prepare you for finding the silly thing. This is nothing new. It’s right up their with not teaching kids how to balance a checkbook, which they would have to do monthly, but instead teaching them how to multiply fractions which few would ever need to do again.

Kids today (yes, I’m really old. Now get off my lawn.) literally walk around with a university in their pockets. What do they use it for? Games and music. Don’t get me wrong, I like games and music, too, but getting a job might be a bit more important. We had phone books but I still stunk at job hunting. Maybe the problem is a tad more obvious.

Distractions are easier. I’ve used the Yellow Pages to find things I didn’t even want, just like everyone else my age. Figuring out who sells parts for a bike is a lot more interesting and a lot less scary than cold calling businesses to apply for work even if I didn’t have a bike. Is killing Mario a few times rather than putting in online applications really any different?

Any of you young enough to realize Mario is an anachronism (look it up – you have a dictionary in that university) don’t get too smug. Ten years from now, some kid will read the same line and have no clue that no one plays Mario Brothers much anymore. That kid may not even know what Mario is.

The important thing is this: will you still be distracting yourself from real life in ten years or will you be living it?

All us old people are thinking the same thing; get off your tuchus and get a job. Half of us are wishing we could go back to work. The rest are wondering what to do next.

Then we watch the news and wonder what the heck to do about this insane country of ours.

The answer is the same to all of them. Do something productive. If you don’t know what that something is, find out!

There comes a time when you are forced to decide if you are going to be part of the solution or just live with the problem. By that time, the problem is a comfortable pain. Sure it hurts, but we’re used to it and it’s not scary like doing something about it is. Only when the pain gets too bad will we move – but by then we’ve wasted so much time living with the pain.

Sounds stupid? It is. It’s also something everyone does. It’s just not something everyone has to do.

You’re standing by your own lake. The sun is baking, the mosquitoes are on steroids and some jerk in a motorboat got your gear wet.

If you cut bait, you can say you did something. It’s easy and maybe you don’t think so hard about the mosquitoes. But you won’t have supper.

Or you can get on with the hard part and start casting. Maybe you fail, maybe not. But if you succeed you have supper instead of just a lot of prepared bait.

Up to you.