I must be getting old!!

I have many opportunities throughout each week to talk and interact with teenagers and one of the things I have begun to realize about them is a way of thinking that is typically centered around themselves. It doesn't always mean that they are completely self-centered and all they talk about is themselves but just in the way that they carry themselves, make decisions, think it has become apparent to me. I'm starting to see the things that my parents always talked to me about and the folly in these ways that the majority of teenagers think. I had a conversation with a teenager today in which this person divulged that their parent was injust in witholding a certain privelege from them that affected this person's freedoms. After further talking I learned that the reason this person's privelege was witheld was because of the kids lack of responsibilty. This kid felt powerless and unjustly dealt with and I unsuccessfully tried to help him see that a lot of blame lay squarely on him and that he had a choice to make but instead he only saw that someone was treating him contrary to his idea of justness and he complained about it. In other words, instead of taking care of the real issue which was himself, he chose to hold others in contempt.
I'm sure we do that often enough in our society. For instance, when the wave of school shootings happened in the late 90's people started talking about gun control and taking stuff off the internet that showed how to make bombs. That would be like a person suing MacDonalds for them being overweight (which sadly has happened before). Instead of looking within it's of course always easier to point the finger at others than to look at ourselves. I am reminded of a quote, but I don't know who it's from. " We would all be much better off if we praised others like we praised ourselves, and blamed ourselves like we blame others."
I sure that kid, as well as we as a people, get some wisdom otherwise. Otherwise, we are all in for some trouble.