In the Soviet Union, paths to success were relatively predictable—put your head down, work hard, and you get rewarded with stable income and a state-sponsored apartment. Engineers, lawyers, and teachers were paid the same because their education took about the same time. Professors and PhDs were paid more than regular doctors because they had to study more. It was far from perfect but it was perceived as predictable.
Then it ended.
It turned out the economy was not sustainable, and the state dissolved, taking the illusion of predictability with it. Until then, every life looked similar. The collapse revealed confusion between the essence and the roles. In the three years that followed (1991-1994), the suicide rate among men aged 50-54 almost doubled to 140 per 100,000. Many lost the ability to sustain their families and life purpose as they knew it. They had internalized the identity of being breadwinners. They thought it was their essence, but it was a role.
My mother was 51 when the Soviet Union fell apart. She survived, unlike those men.
I was 18. I had no father present. My mother modeled remarkable flexibility. Seemingly overnight, she turned into a businesswoman. She started negotiating better prices, finding new reliable suppliers, and even had to ensure her supermarket had “krysha” (“roof”, or protection from and by racketeers). She was a natural.
I realize now that the same values and skills that got her the rare position of a supermarket director helped her to adapt to the new world. Her values were fairness, compassion, and entrepreneurship. In Soviet times, they helped her to ensure her store had enough kolbasa (bologna) from the state warehouse. In new times, the same values helped to negotiate and build business relationships, pay her staff on time, and protect the store from going bankrupt as many others did. The state was crumbling, so she did not wait for it to provide a new path.
Our future has never been predictable but it was changing slowly. One generation was enough to give kids time to adjust. Sudden change that hit Soviet men in 1991 now happens almost constantly to pur kids. Five years ago, we perceived computer engineering to be the most predictable career path but now AI models can do most of the entry-level programming. Parents still tell the kids, “Look at me, I have a job and my company still needs expert programmers”, but the kids feel as if the door had been shut in front of them, right behind their parents.
They see a PhD answering phone calls in a clinic and a toddler making millions on YouTube, opening toys. The future became illegible. So, teens keep scrolling through social media looking for an opening, advice or role model to show them the way. Instead, they see videos promoted based on viewing time, not expertise or the action viewers take after watching it. The videos watched the most are least likely to prompt stepping away from the screen.
What can parents do?
We have to show the kids that their actions lead to predictable results. Studying leads to more knowledge. A high grade is a measure of their knowledge but not a guaranteed outcome. Lifting weights leads to being stronger, not nesesseraly winning tournaments. Cooking pasta leads to food on the table, not a career at a restaurant.
See the patterns? The essence is not given by schools, parents or states. It is intrinsic. It is something that is not subtracted from others and multiplies in the world. It is like love or compassion. The more I love my kids, the more love there is in the world. The more I care about my patients, the more care there is. The more curious I am, the more curiosity I generate. My hunger for knowledge does not take anything from others. My writing creates more writing with no cost to anyone else.
The simple test to understand the true value is to ask a question. Are we getting something from an action or for it? We get knowledge from studying and we get the grades for studying. We get stamina from running and we get a medal for running a marathon. The first will never disappoint.
Don’t get me wrong. Competition for finite resources like jobs and money is normal. Publishing takes away a spot from another author. Higher grades get my kids to university instead of someone else. Survival of the fittest is how we evolved. But winning cannot be the purpose. It may be a goal, but without our essence we don’t even know what goals matter to us. If I don’t care about video games, winning a competition is not only impossible but also pointless to me.
Being a crisis psychiatrist, I see how the fear of an uncertain future triggers hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. It is unbearable because we cannot guess the future outcomes, skills needed, system changes. But we can be certain that in the future studying will still bring more knowledge and baking – more cookies. So our job is to show our kids that no matter what, they can still be themselves regardless of the paths available to them.
Please read the second half of this series here:
A Teen’s Essence
There is a moment about 10 minutes in the interview when we understand each other. A teenager admitted against their will to a psychiatric ward and a psychiatrist four times their age, seemingly holding all the power.
Ruben, this hit close to home.
Poland went through its own version of the same shock in the early 90s — the old paths vanished almost overnight. It wasn’t as brutal as what happened in the Soviet Union, but plenty of people who had built their entire identity around the system suddenly had nothing left to stand on. The ones who made it were the ones who already carried something deeper than the role.
Your mother’s story, and the way you frame essence versus role, feels exactly right. Thank you for writing it so clearly.
Your mother would certainly have a very resilient temperament profile and considerable grit.