I wrote this article in response to events that I have been personally dealing with in recent days. Lately, a number of young people in our small community have become caught up in rivalry and social comparison. Amid the country's unstable economic conditions, they want to accomplish overnight what normally takes decades of hard work. This trend is visible across all segments of society—young and old, women and men, homemakers and university professors alike. But what is especially concerning is that these unrealistic ambitions are most common among young people who lack education, skills, or expertise. As a result, they take reckless and poorly considered risks, causing irreparable harm to themselves, their families, and the community. Those who have not yet experienced life's hardships want to complete the long and difficult journey of building a meaningful life in a single night.
This raises an important question: why has this happened? Why has our community—which once took pride in striving for excellence through service, industry, education, and healing humanity—now become so narrowly focused on material needs? Why have so many families and young people come to define success almost exclusively in financial terms?
Let us consider a few questions:
- Has our moral compass been weakened by economic hardship?
Haven't previous generations endured conditions far worse than those we face today? Why were they able to persevere through lives marked by discrimination, humiliation, and crushing taxes, preserving our community through the centuries, while we now struggle to do the same? - Has our obsession with social comparison and outward appearances—valuing image over substance and superficial happiness over meaningful investment in ourselves—brought us to this point?
- Has genuine solidarity and empathy disappeared?
Have our communal bonds been reduced to ceremonies and shared meals, while we remain unaware of the crises unfolding within families? Have some become so indifferent to their fellow Zoroastrians that they treat one another unfairly? In other words, do we now view each family's struggles as solely their own concern rather than a concern for the entire community? - Is there a clear contradiction between what elders teach young people—and especially children—and the way those same elders actually live their own lives?
- Has excluding young people from the community's decision-making and leadership roles contributed to these outcomes?
- Have we failed to recognize and learn from our accomplished professionals, industrialists, businesspeople, artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs?
Have we missed opportunities to let them share their experiences, mentor younger generations, and guide them as teachers and role models? - Has our community placed excessive value on people simply because they are wealthy or influential, even when they have made no meaningful contribution to the community itself?
- Is the broader society gradually pushing our families toward an increasingly one-dimensional view of success, while our Zoroastrian scholars, intellectuals, and community leaders have been unable to offer effective preventive solutions?
Let us reflect on these questions and seek solutions. A society that measures a person's worth solely by wealth inevitably sacrifices every other dimension of human growth and flourishing—knowledge, mental and physical health, appreciation of beauty and the arts, practical skills, creativity, compassion, joy, and spirituality. Unchecked moral decline will spread throughout such a society, and over time, even a small and close-knit community like ours will begin to fall apart.
Let us come together and carefully examine the needs of our community today. Let us seek the guidance of scholars, intellectuals, sociologists, and those who work closely with our community—both in Iran and abroad—who understand these challenges and have thought deeply about possible solutions. Together, let us redefine what it means to live a balanced and meaningful life.
We cannot truly enjoy our own private happiness while the people around us are struggling with intellectual, financial, and spiritual poverty.
"Written by Farahnaz Chehelmard"
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