Why aren't more people taking up scuba diving?
- Thread starter RJP
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Well, maybe to some degree, and I think it depends a lot on where you live, what your field is. Until recent times Alberta was the place to be to make real money. That's why (before the Fire) half of the Maritimes were in Ft. Mac.
I graduated college (university) in '76 and applied for teaching positions snail mail of course all over the U.S. and Canada and got two job offers--both in Northern Manitoba. I graduated Magna Cum Laude as well, but they weren't exactly beating down my door. The fact that I taught Band, a specialty, was always in my favour--and other teachers who toiled as subs waiting their turn let me know it. I was lucky to get the two offers, but I wouldn't say that's having it a lot easier than today's youth. The tech. revolution everyone talked about in the '80s is really 30 years old now. Jobs, I guess are much different. Unless you're born into money and a business, I don't think it's ever been really easy for anyone.
Take my post for what it is but being a mere 43 I am a whipper-snapper compared to some in this thread.
I don't think it has ever been easy for any generation. Every generation has had to put up with recessions, high prices etc. I started work in 1989 and have now been made redundant 4 times (out of 6 jobs) but muddled through and eventually got to a position where I was financially relatively stable. The attitude to keep plugging away at life does help.
I would have loved to learn diving younger but finances did not allow. It was extremely difficult at times keeping food on the table and a car on the road (the car was essential as I worked 20-30 miles away without public transport links to it). Occasionally I got into large debt just to stay afloat but not at that point now. Relatively debt free (mortgage only left) and money spare so diving is now my main hobby.
I don't think it has ever been easy for any generation. Every generation has had to put up with recessions, high prices etc. I started work in 1989 and have now been made redundant 4 times (out of 6 jobs) but muddled through and eventually got to a position where I was financially relatively stable. The attitude to keep plugging away at life does help.
I would have loved to learn diving younger but finances did not allow. It was extremely difficult at times keeping food on the table and a car on the road (the car was essential as I worked 20-30 miles away without public transport links to it). Occasionally I got into large debt just to stay afloat but not at that point now. Relatively debt free (mortgage only left) and money spare so diving is now my main hobby.
Shotmaster
Contributor
I think the largest difference is that it was once possible to work your way through college, and now with the increase in the number of people who attend college and the associated increases in tuition costs now make that mostly impossible.
Holy cow the whining is getting very loud. The US national unemployment rate is 5%. Anybody who doesn't have a job doesn't want a job.
Every generation thinks it has it harder than the one before it, every older generation thinks they had it harder than the younger generation after it. In other words nothing has changed. The person is the difference, they always will be, if they believe they can't succeed they will prove themselves right, if they think they can succeed they will prove themselves right. Get off your smart phones, delete your facebook and instagram accounts, go to work and put in 110%, stop thinking that you're the most important person on the planet. Millennials should be looking at the opportunity they have, how hard is it to succeed when the level of your competition is so low and does everything they can to shoot themselves in the foot? It doesn't take much to stand out of the crowd in your current generation, individuals who recognize this can take advantage of it. If I was a millennial I'd be doing exactly the same thing I did when I was their age, I'd be looking around at all my peers whining and bitching about how hard they have it, I'd give them some cheese with their whine, pat them on their back and tell them to sleep in while I got up early and took advantage of the situations that they were missing because they were convinced they didn't exist.
Hard work and hard workers always succeed, that's never going to change, this generation is just drinking the coolaid that a certain political party has been feeding them for almost a decade that it's not their fault that they are victims of the rich, victims of race, victims of tuition loans... wake up and shake that stuff off and realize what their motivations are to tell you that, look around you and look with your eyes wide open for the first time and realize the rhetoric doesn't match the reality.
If you stop believing you're a victim you can actually go out and be a success, it won't come overnight, nothing worthwhile ever does, it will take time but you have to first understand that whatever you want in life is available to anyone be earned, (we have a black president, need we say more? What barriers are there anymore? None. Race, creed, religion, family name, nothing matters in America, you are what you want to be, the split between millionaires in America who have college education and those who don't is 50/50) and again just look around at your peers, your competition is weak, while they are crying about there is no money to be had anymore, pat them on the back console them and then ask them "Hey can you step to the left for a moment", while you reach down and pick up that silver dollar they were standing next to but couldn't see through their tears.
Every generation thinks it has it harder than the one before it, every older generation thinks they had it harder than the younger generation after it. In other words nothing has changed. The person is the difference, they always will be, if they believe they can't succeed they will prove themselves right, if they think they can succeed they will prove themselves right. Get off your smart phones, delete your facebook and instagram accounts, go to work and put in 110%, stop thinking that you're the most important person on the planet. Millennials should be looking at the opportunity they have, how hard is it to succeed when the level of your competition is so low and does everything they can to shoot themselves in the foot? It doesn't take much to stand out of the crowd in your current generation, individuals who recognize this can take advantage of it. If I was a millennial I'd be doing exactly the same thing I did when I was their age, I'd be looking around at all my peers whining and bitching about how hard they have it, I'd give them some cheese with their whine, pat them on their back and tell them to sleep in while I got up early and took advantage of the situations that they were missing because they were convinced they didn't exist.
Hard work and hard workers always succeed, that's never going to change, this generation is just drinking the coolaid that a certain political party has been feeding them for almost a decade that it's not their fault that they are victims of the rich, victims of race, victims of tuition loans... wake up and shake that stuff off and realize what their motivations are to tell you that, look around you and look with your eyes wide open for the first time and realize the rhetoric doesn't match the reality.
If you stop believing you're a victim you can actually go out and be a success, it won't come overnight, nothing worthwhile ever does, it will take time but you have to first understand that whatever you want in life is available to anyone be earned, (we have a black president, need we say more? What barriers are there anymore? None. Race, creed, religion, family name, nothing matters in America, you are what you want to be, the split between millionaires in America who have college education and those who don't is 50/50) and again just look around at your peers, your competition is weak, while they are crying about there is no money to be had anymore, pat them on the back console them and then ask them "Hey can you step to the left for a moment", while you reach down and pick up that silver dollar they were standing next to but couldn't see through their tears.
Shotmaster
Contributor
It's never been easy. Attitude is everything, hard work and persistence is what it takes to succeed. Nobody ever gave me anything. I had to fight for it.
Bob DBF
Contributor
According to other government numbers from labor & stastics, the US working population is around 204M and the number of jobs is around 144M, not including seasonal farm jobs. Not to say you can get a good number directly out of that, but unemployment decides you are not looking for work if you don't get a job fast enough, and part time is considered a job, so that 5% is not so accurate either.
I believe that the migration out of California is being driven by the real unemployment rate. Not only are citizens moving to other states, but foreign nationals both legal and illegal as well. The poverty rate in the state is over 23%. None of this sounds like a booming economy with a small 5% unemployment.
Bob
certified in 1976
Contributor
Completely. I worked my way through college in the 1970's by working summers and part time during the school year. When I graduated my student loan was only $3000. If I remember right, tuition was only about $800. per semester and a typical student wage was about $2.00 - 2.50/hr. I always had "good" student jobs - driving a delivery truck, lumbar yard, hardware store and bar tender. I had a friend who used to work summers on the assembly line at General Motors and he'd make more money than he could spend in the school year. Kids can't put themselves through college nowadays working summers.
Can't remember what my OW course cost back then.
Harvard credit hour $2840.00
Boston Community College credit hour $128.00
Kids might not be able to easily work their way through college just working for 3 months during the summer, but not every kid needs to graduate with $220,000 in student loan debt to get a degree either.
Master Plumbers make on average $100,000 a year without a degree, without any student loans. You could get paid to learn.
Not to denigrate going to college but I never went. I graduated from high school and worked hard to get to where I am today. I have never been unemployed. I live in a very nice house in a nice town and use my vacation time from work to go diving, having been to many of the bucket list dive locations such as Australia, PNG, Raja Ampat etc. Several of the employees that work for me are in debt up to their ears in student loans and will be paying them off for most of their adult lives. I think that in this day and age young people need to look at the value of those student loans rather than racking up the debt just for the sake of a degree.
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