Day after day, as I interview entrepreneurs and write stories about their young companies, I'm struck by how much the world my children will inherit is changing. The globalized economy has removed some of the privileges non-rich Americans once enjoyed, as lower-cost producers of goods, especially in China, have replaced many working class jobs in the U.S.
That, plus the decline of unions, has placed millions of working people closer to poverty than those my age experienced.
At the same time, many of the other advantages of American society, like an affordable college education, seem to be disappearing as well.
Housing remains expensive in many parts of the country; owning a car is starting to look like a luxury to young people.
So, how are they reacting?
The Millennials are launching car-sharing companies, apartment-sharing companies, task-sharing companies, and so on.
They are establishing a new "sharing economy," that is also called collaborative consumption. I've been writing it about it a lot over the past year, because I think it will prove to be a new long-term trend.
As Americans learn new skills, how to share resources, live more frugally, and replace the security of long-term jobs with the opportunity of entrepreneurial efforts, maybe the transition will not be as painful as it sometimes seems like it could be.
On the other hand, if our young people start eschewing higher eduction, as too expensive and not essential from their perspective, we will begin to lose our most valuable resource -- the intellectual talent of our home-grown population.
The whole thing shifts from clarity to fuzziness for me as I try to perceive the future. So much is changing so fast, the patterns become obscured, and the advice I'd love to be able to give my young ones becomes all too elusive.
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