Gen Next? How About Gen Now?

After watching Steve Job's Stanford 2005 Commencement Speech for the nth time, I decided to check out some of the subsequent commencement speeches made at Stanford. I struggled for 8 minutes with Oprah (2008) talking about herself & her god daughter (Class of 2008) and shamelessly trying to play to the gallery before I had enough of the woman. I then saw the link for the speech in 2006 by Tom Brokaw.

I have never heard of Tom Brokaw before. Turns out he is a world famous and, unlike Oprah, is also a learned person who has worked as a TV journalist all over the world for the last 30 years. His speech was that of a mature man who has seen a lot that life has to offer. It was also polished and hard hitting, as one would expect from an experienced journalist. Unlike Steve Jobs who talked about deeply personal lessons or Oprah who talked just plain crap, Tom focused on the responsibility that the Stanford class had to other people.

He talked about how he has interviewed the most famous & powerful people on the planet, and yet is still humbled by men & women who dedicate their lives to serve causes. The point he made about biologists in the Amazonian rain forests who endure illness, danger & discomfort just to try & catalog species before they are wiped out was a strong one. More so was the story he told about a doctor from a poor family who took a huge loan to go to Stanford & then went and joined Doctors Without Borders so that he could save children. The story of the Mongolian nomad who rode 15 miles on his horse just to vote held the class in rapt attention.

Tom then went on to remind his audience of the what he called 'the greatest generation America ever produced'. He was referring to the men & women who overcame the Great Depression, defeated the Axis Powers in WW2, laid the foundations for America to become the most powerful nation in the world, and yet found the time & compassion to not only rebuild their erstwhile enemies but also to liberate blacks & women in America.

Now my question to you is this, what kind of generation will we in India be remembered as? Where are the leaders who will do a Roosevelt for us? How many people are there amongst us who will take the path less traveled and turn their backs on the corporate rat race? How many of us actually care about the environment or the plight of people who aren't as fortunate as we are?

A close friend of mine often derides this nation for its plight. She says that we deserve to be poor and backward. Maybe she's right. There are times when I can't help but agree with her. But there are also times when I feel that this cannot be our answer. I personally know that almost all (of the little) that I have achieved has been due to the support & values that my parents gave me. I certainly didn't 'deserve' to be their son. I was just lucky. And so are most of us. As much as we'd like to think that we are self made men & women, we're not. We're the product of what our parents, our teachers, our friends and if you stretch the point, our country has made us.

Maybe its time we stopped worrying about things like our stock portfolio, our last rating at work, our next promotion, the new car the neighbour just bought and god knows what else.

There are much bigger challenges our generation has to deal with. Global warming, terrorism, religious intolerance, poverty, environmental degradation, pollution. Take your pick.

Unlike our parents & their parents, we've been lucky enough to never know what food shortages, foreign rule, lack of jobs & opportunities are. We've grown up in a land of plenty, we've been educated in the best institutions and we're armed with the latest technology.

This is our time. If we don't make a difference now, we never will. Steve Jobs spoke about how though we are young now, not too far in the future we will be 'the old' that has to make way for 'the new'. We need to ask ourselves if we want to be remembered as the generation that settled for reality shows when it had the chance to save the planet?

Ladies & Gentlemen / Boys & Girls, the clock is ticking....