Stop talking about “passing the baton”

“Every spring, commencement speakers take the stage across the country to tell the graduates, ‘Our hopes for the future are in your hands.’ I have an urgent message for these speakers: in the name of God, don’t do it! It’s unfair to lay all responsibility for the future on the younger generation. After all, the problems they face are partly due to the fact that we, their elders, screwed up. Worse still, it’s not true that the young alone are in charge of what comes next. We—young and old together—hold the future in our hands. 

If our common life is to become more compassionate, creative, and just, it will take an intergenerational effort. Let’s stop talking about “passing the baton” to the young as we elders finish running our laps. Since most of us are more skilled at sitting than at running, let’s change the metaphor and invite young adults to join the orchestra. As we sit together, we can help them learn to play their instruments—while they help us learn the music of the emerging world, which they hear more clearly than we do. Together we can compose something lovelier and more alive than the current cacophony, something in which dissonance has a place but does not dominate.”