This article, "Has Generation Y overdosed on self-esteem", has me wondering if we Boomers haven't done more harm than good in working so hard making life the easy and comfortable passage between birth and death it now is for so many in the Western World.

It was, after all, our generation that took it on board to do everything within our power to level playing fields, even the odds, and strive for as close to some guarantee of 'normal' for as many as possible. In our vision of the world, every person should be judged on nothing but his or her own merits ... taking into account every potential stumbling block they may have encountered in life, of course, and adjusting the scale accordingly, for after all how fair would it be if we didn't.

We have taken it as a given that those coming behind us deserve bigger, better, more, and that they shouldn't have to suffer much stress to get it. Pressures that were common in the past, simple things like walking some distance to school and working to put yourself through college, are now commonly considered almost abusive in some circles.

By making life roads so much smoother, have we done anyone any favors?

... over the past few decades the prevailing disposition among college students – today labeled Generation Y or Millennials – has slid into full-blown narcissism ...

For some, the study validates their suspicions of educational and parenting techniques that put undue emphasis on the positive: tot-level self-esteem boosterism, luxury-as-necessity entitlement, and what one calls "instant fame-ification."

Citing YouTube and Facebook as 'fame-ification' tools, the study suggest that narcissists are aggressive when insulted or threatened, have problems with impulse control and are more likely to, "be pathological gamblers [or] commit white-collar crimes."

Although it's our generation that leads by a huge measure in the white-collar crime arena at the moment, are we just beginning to get a hint of what the rest of the iceberg may look like when the baton has been handed off to the up-and-coming Young Turks? Will the Masters of the New Universe be even more criminally self-involved?

"Gen-Y is the most difficult workforce I've ever encountered, because part of them are greatest-generation great and the other part are so self-indulgent as to be genuinely offensive to know, let alone supervise," says Marian Salzman, a trendspotter and senior vice president at JWT, the global advertising agency.

Continued ...