When it comes to expectations of my students, I often ask the vexatious question: “Why work?” The conversation continues onto the normalised responses of:
Grades
Qualification
Job
Money
(Family)
Possessions
Happiness
I do not believe that the below article I paste for you reflects in credible terms on the notion of happiness. It does, though, speak about the idea of entitlement that affects young people (myself included, although I am not so young!).
It stresses that entitlement is detrimental when the purpose of your work is to achieve material and social expectations that you have not yet seen in your peers. In other words, your purpose is extrinsic and held up to material, rather than experiential, measures:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html
