EPFO APFC 2012 • General Studies • Q.78

It has been rightly said that we spend the first half of our lives trying to understand the older generation, and the second half trying to understand the younger generation. Youth has always felt somewhat exasperated with age, and age has always been suspicious of youth. With their natural ebullience and impatience, a majority of young people are keen to act and learn on their own rather than be guided by the experience of their elders. The older people, being more at home with words rather than with action, often make noises about the problems of youth. In every generation, old men are found shaking their hoary heads and waxing nostalgic about the good old days when young people knew better and showed due reverence to age and tradition. In all ages, whenever they have pondered over the ways of youth, they have foreseen nothing but ruination staring the world in its face. And yet the world goes on. Every generation passes from the spontaneity and exuberance of youth to the caution and prudence of old age, and then yields place to the next.