Western culture lacks meaningful rites of passage for adolescents, relying instead on shallow milestones like driving and drinking. Indigenous traditions use ceremonies to help youth discover purpose and their role in society. The speaker argues we should intentionally guide young people to find their personal "yes" as a real rite of passage.
Good morning, everyone. Here's your moment of yes for today, brought to you by the Brooklyn Water Bagel Cube Sta ice coffee. See that? Ice coffee cubes. No watered-down coffee. Brooklyn Water Bagel, home of the Cube Sta. Okay, well, they're not really a sponsor, but if I were to have a sponsor for the moment of yes, would love me some Brooklyn Water Bagel ice coffee. So if you're out there. Look me up. Okay, now that I have my dignity back, welcome to the Moment of Yes for today. It's a big one today. This is a concept I've been thinking about for a while, put it on the list of books that I would love to write at some point. If you want to help me, let me know. If you think about Western culture, Western society, we don't really have rites of passage for adolescents. Actually, if you look at what probably the rites of passage is for An adolescent in the United States, it would be getting your license. It would be, when's the first time you got drunk? First time you got high? And when did you lose your virginity? That's kind of like your rites of passage as an adolescent in our culture. Not the highest mark of what we want. You look at different cultures, as far as more indigenous cultures, you've got the walkabouts. You've got bar mitzvahs, things like that, when you are having to claim what is the contribution you're going to make to society. Society or the world. We don't have that in our culture. And if you look at what is more important than that for someone really claiming who they are, what their purpose is, what their yes is, what is it that they want to give to the world? And I really think the biggest problem facing our development today as far as kids, humanity, and where are we going Is this lack of sense of personal purpose. And when you have a lack of personal purpose, you have a collective lack of purpose in society. So, what do we connect our purpose to? How much money we make, how big is our house, what are the nice things that we have. A very shallow and unfulfilling, unsatisfying sense of purpose. And then we self-perpetuate it because we think that is where the satisfaction is going to come from. I know these are ideas that are not new to any of you. But what if we went back? What if we went back to nurturing in our youth where they already have a sense of purpose instead of nurturing it out of them, embracing it and getting them to engage with it in a very intentional way from a very intentional young age instead of saying, get a career and then find your purpose. That's not the way that it works. And there's probably lots of you watching this who can relate to that. So, your moment of yes for today is let's get back to embracing not only in adults but young people embracing that purpose and going after that and nothing else. And that should be your rites of passage. That's your moment of yes for today, everyone. Have a great day. Thank you.
