Finding the Meaning of Happiness

Everyone is always saying to us nowadays, you are the future. You can make a difference. Well, those thoughts along with the need to get money to go to college, our parents pushing the good grades, and the unending amount of work, are not the best way to prepare. Timothy Egan writes of the typical student, going to college, succeeding with high marks, and then in this time and economy, having a remarkable degree with no employment. We are used to the good performance and the rewards from it in school, sports, and other activities. Out there in the real world, that's not going to happen. We could possibly face a mounting amount of rejection. That rejection is something we aren't used to and is going to make us feel hopeless. Today, everything amounts to a measurement; a test score, a grade, or a midterm and we place high value on those measurements. But, what about the happiness when those measurements fail to give us a direction in life? Egan's main point is that parents shouldn't worry as much about a letter on a report card, compared to teaching us the feeling of failure and the meaning of true happiness.

In Timothy Egan's New York Times Opinionator article "Boomer Parent's Lament", Egan writes about how the high value of a grade or a number will not prepare our generation for entering the troubled economy. From his opening paragraph, the audience knows Egan is aiming to reach an audience of parents with kids who are struggling after college to find good employment. Egan's key point is made when he says, "For all the efforts to raise hyperachievers, we didn't teach enough of a basic survival skill -- to find joy in simple things not connected to a grade, a trophy, or a job," (Egan). He uses the technique of logos by using facts and statistics to show the amount of qualified graduates working in underqualified jobs. Egan sites Steve Jobs's commencement speech and a New Yorker article that both support his point of view. The article also uses Timothy Egan's own personal story of the true happiness his father would find even though he had lived during the Great Depression, which appeals to the audience's pathos. The opinion article "Boomer Parent's Lament" by Timothy Egan has definitely given me a new perspective on what really matters in life.

Source: Egan, Timothy . "Boomer Parent's Lament." The New York Times 27 Oct. 2011, sec. Opinionator: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.