To the Class of 2019: Beware the madding crowd

I read in the paper the other day that young people are super terrified of global warming, income insecurity, health care coverage and whether or not Game of Thrones will ever be revived.

Yup, there's a whole lot of hysteria going on. And it's all cause of Trump!

You see all the Democratic presidential hopefuls say President Trump is an existential threat, global warming is an existential threat, income security or inequality is an existential threat, housing insecurity is an existential threat, the ending of Game of Thrones, too, you guessed it, is an existential threat.

And just like that, most of the media climbs aboard, piles on, amplifies and gins everybody up.

Now if I heard all these adults - including some of your former high school teachers and most of your college profs to come - saying everything was "an existential threat," guess what?

I'd feel threatened existentially!

So I say this summer get away from the madding crowd. Don't look at Facebook for a week, or better, a month.

Hike, fish, fall in love, do anything, but whatever you do, don't be terrified of one damn thing.

Don't be afraid of life.

But if you are, here's why. Much of the media wants you to think the world is coming to an end because they want you to worry and fret and feel powerless. But at the ballot box in November 2020 you won't be powerless, you'll be able to turn the world rightside up after four years of being upside down. How? Well, of course, voting against President Trump.

But let's put facts before farce for a minute.

Worried about income insecurity? There are more jobs out there than ever before and beginning about a year ago, blue collar salaries shot upward by 20 percent in many cases.

There's flaggers getting more than $20 an hour for gosh sakes. We don't need a minimum wage hike. Seasoned mechanics are getting $30 an hour. There's never been more income security for crying out loud.

Some in Rochester's senior class will be moving straight into good-paying jobs with benefits at Safran or Albany Engineering thanks to the schooling they got at McIntosh while enrolled at Spaulding High.

Trust me, anyone who wants a full-time job is going to get one. Will you get paid as much as you'd like to or as much as you deserve? Hell, no. You probably never will. But you'll do fine.

And despite what many have told you, the world's not ending in 11 years due to climate change. They were telling us back in the 1960s we were going to burn to death when the ozone layer went away back.

They also told us we'd be on the metric system by the 1990s. They were wrong by a mile, er meter, weren't they.

No, the only existential threat to you is listening to the madding crowd. Listen to yourself, read both sides, get different points of view, think deliberately and be your own man or woman.

It's kind of funny. While an "existential" threat in today's parlance is often taken to mean that our existence as humankind is threatened, existentialism the philosophy means something very different. Existentialism emphasizes the individual's worth as a responsible agent in determining their own development through acts of their own will.

So be true to yourself, not Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Enjoy your summer. You got this.