Claim: Even though young people often receive the advice to “follow your dreams,” more emphasis should be placed on picking worthy goals.Reason: Many people’s dreams are inherently selfish.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which

When classifying our global population into different generations, it has become ubiquitously accepted that newer generations, namely the millenials and generation Z, possess certain characteristics that are not as common in previous generations. One extremely prevalent observation is that young people tend to be more willing to dream about futures and careers that may not be the most conventional and down the beaten track. This has given rise to the argument in which society should place greater emphasis on worthy goals for youth to follow, with the main reason being that many youth nowadays have inherently selfish dreams. Admittedly, there is some truth in this statement, but I believe that although dreams may be self-centred or self-motivated, it does equate into unworthiness and may in fact benefit society in many occasions.

Firstly, in certain cases, it is true that more emphasis need to be placed on picking more 'worthy' goals for some youth of today. Millenials and generation X-ers have all too often been characterised as individualistic. This can be observed in so many social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Young people readily broadcast their lives, thoughts and experiences. Such behaviour does reflect a certain level of self-centredness that is less prevalent in previous generations. In doing so, the selfishness of youth might lead them to pursue lofty and unworthy goals. Especially with the popularity of reality TV with shows like Living with the Kardashians or The Bachelor, younger people can be easily influenced and bedazzled by fame and wealth. Indeed, many young people may dream of being famous due to the portrayal of such reality TV and Hollywood stars and having an entire generation chasing such careers would spell disaster for society. Other industries outside the entertainment industry would suffer and our global economy would plummet. Therefore, it is important for society to emphasise on other more worthy goals that would result in contributions to society in other forms - political, economic, scientific and artistic.

That being said, not every young person's dreams are selfish and unworthy. In the society of today, the general agreement on a worthy goal would probably be a goal that allows the individual to contribute positively to the society and the people around them. For example, jobs like teachers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, all have an element of contribution to society and bringing up a next generation of greater possibilities. The claim tends to ignore that there exist young people who do possess such dreams; young people who have dreams of contributing to society. Such dreams may or may not be inherently selfish, but are indubitably worthy goals. By having a coded version of what is 'worthy' or 'unworthy' might deter people from following their true passions into a potentially worthy career path and this would in turn negatively impact their futures and society.

Finally, I would like to argue that all dreams, worthy or unworthy, are inherently selfish. All dreams ultimately come from a form of an ideal that an individual would like to achieve with his or her life. Such dreams come in many forms, perhaps in contributing to society in the invention of new machines or drugs, or perhaps in leading a nation into a brighter future. These can all be worthy dreams because they do contribute positively to society. Nevertheless, they stem from some kind of selfishness in that the individual still has a certain level of comfort, wealth or stability they would like to achieve in their lives. Inventing a new drug could mean recognition for the individual and leading a nation could bring fame and in some cases economic stability for the individual as well. All these self-serving motivations come into play in any dream. Therefore it is not possible to completely remove the idea of promoting unselfish, 'worthy' dreams because such cases are extremely unlikely, if ever, to exist.

In conclusion, although it may be true that society should emphasise on some worthy goals for youth to follow instead of purely chasing their dreams, the reason that many people's dreams are inherently selfish does not always hold. Some people may not have inherently selfish dreams and even so, such dreams may not be unworthy and can actually have positive effects on both the individual and society. In addition, there is always some traces of a self-serving tendency or nature in every goal because it is plain unreasonable to expect an individual to dream of a purely altruistic goal, at his or her own expense. That goes against the very nature of self-preservation and survival that is ingrained in us as human beings. The claim and reason therefore only provide a very skewed point of view at a larger picture - in order to build successful and balanced future generations, it is important to consider that a society includes many different types of careers and people and different individuals will be able to achieve different goals based on their abilities. It is thus more essential to build on the abilities of the young and guide them into paths that would harness their skills to contribute to society in the best way possible.