I have noticed the past few years my ability to motivate and inspire high schoolers and college students has greatly increased (not to mention my outreach to young men). I think this is in part that I have really started to understand and speak to their worldly way of thinking.
A big trend in worldly thinking is the notion of “what is your value?” And “are you a high value man or woman?” The irony is that in the Catholic world we tend to highly criticize and condemn such a proposition, but we do so by completely reinforcing those same hierarchies on a practical level. We listen to the same influencers who tell us these things don’t matter precisely because they are high value people we admire.
They are smarter than us, better looking, more disciplined… in other words, they have excellence. Another way of putting value or lack thereof is excellence. People admire excellence. But some worldly excellence is necessary. I find young people who are constantly being affirmed and coddled, but the reality is that they are broke, not disciplined, have terrible manners, and quite frankly struggle to make meaningful relationships.
Instead of being affirmed, they need a group of people around them that wants what best and challenge them to be better