For a second, I actually thought I was getting old when Gen Z boy said he thought I didn't think I would know Discord because I'm old. "Old?" But then I realised I am actually more than a decade older than this kid, so of course I am old to him. In the conversations that we had, though, it was nothing biased by age. And I was blown away by his personality.
You'd be surprised what kids of these days know and what they are capable of. And you may never really see their potential and get to know them if you don't try to connect. Some of them are mostly closed off to people much older, as it's apparent to them that they are a different generation. These ones I met... were impressive.
We thought to visit a family that we hadn't seen in perhaps four years. The last time, they were grieving, so making connections had to be another day. And now the kids are way older and even wiser. Starting a conversation with them was the hardest part, but the energy snowballed with time.
Starting with their interests and choice of career, they already know exactly what they would like to become in a few years. It's not one of those childhood ambitions that change every five working days. Asking them, they shared why they had their ambitions and what they're doing to get there. When I was their age, I wasn't exactly sure until I was to take university admission exams, but that really was because I had to decide anyway.
There were four of them. I mostly had conversations with each of them individually, and that's how I started to learn their personalities, ambitions, interests, and some of their hobbies. In many of the discussions we had, I could also tell how intelligent, confident, and assertive they all were. I thought it was cool.
Even AI. We talked about AI, and they gave their perspective. Interestingly, they had different takes on it. One of them shared why she doesn't like it and why she thinks it's going to be the bane of human existence. Another said, "I love AI, and I use it a lot." But they both had common ground. They both also thought that AI can be used for good, but it is also making people use less of their minds to actually do things. We all went back and forth on different topics, and next thing we knew, we were already talking about something else and even watching a movie together.
The other two were much older, and so we had different kinds of conversations. But as different as they all are, I realised that they had one thing in common. They all have leadership potential. Each of them vastly different, but they were all impressive.
I take them as my new friends. We had fun and had really good conversations. I believe our parents were glad to see us all, including my brother, get along well regardless of age. What I have learned now, though, is that kids are damn smart these days and should not be underrated. Who knows what you could even learn from them?
Images are original property of the author