This is not unique to your generation. Mine (I'm 49) had different but similar myths -- the rock star, the uber-athlete, the astronaut. This is part of our co

This is not unique to your generation. Mine (I'm 49) had different but similar myths -- the rock star, the uber-athlete, the astronaut. This is part of our collective human culture, and to some extent it's sort of a larger extension of what the article is about. It's very difficult to be honest with young people about their odds of making a large-scale difference in a world of six billion people. Even just the opportunity to 'do what you love' is simply not in the cards for the majority. I'm not sure what we can do about that if anything, but it's a fact and it often takes 30+ years before it starts to sink in. Maybe that's evolution's way of keeping us from feeling hopeless before we've had children. Once you have kids, all that ambition can be transferred to them. That might explain why some parents seem to be completely insane when it comes to their kids.