I don't know what sort of JWs you guys used to hang around, but the ones I knew had a deep unease about how long 'this old system' had been going for. My own parents didn't think I'd got to school in 'this system'. Now I'm 37, 1 kid at school, 1 kid starting school this year and another kid on the way. They thought, in sincerity, that the 'new system' would be here by now.
Younger JWs don't understand the constant cry of urgency from the platform/WTs. Many are leaving, many are leading outrageous double-lives (porn and cigar parties, for example). They see the repetitious 'it's closer than ever, it's right around the corner' in the magazines and they simply don't buy into it the way we did in the 80s and 90s.
The JWs in my age range (37-47) are concerned. They're facing a reality where they haven't properly planned for their future, many are working manual jobs for poor pay and no benefits, their children are getting older, in a few years weddings will need to be planned for children who weren't meant to reach their 20s in 'this old system'. Latterly I began to learn of die-hard JWs who for years had been paying large sums into pension funds or 4-figure sums per month into savings accounts for their children. These JWs were usually the ones who pontificated the loudest about how close we are to Armageddon, yet at the same time were surely lacking in JW 'faith' by blatantly planning for a future they weren't meant to believe would come.
My generation were breast-fed the idea that 1914 was pivotal and that that generation wouldn't pass away. Now they're looking down the barrel of 2014 and realising that deep inside they're starting to feel a wee bit uneasy. But with all of these study articles talking about sifting the congregation, people drifting away from the flock, they feel if they even consider giving head space to their doubts and questions they'd be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we know what an anathema a fulfilled prophecy is to the Org.
At the end of the day, I've no doubt that across the entire spectrum of JWs there are many who have doubts about their future. Yes, what do they have to look forward to? More Saturday mornings dragging themselves and their children from apathetic door to apathetic door? More summer conventions sitting in cold/hot/wet/drafty auditoriums/stadiums listening to the same recycled talks and interviews that they listened to the previous year, and for the ten years previous to that? More heavily compacted feelings of guilt when they sit through another CO visit being told that their efforts aren't enough? More anxiety and depression thanks to having to choke down their own intelligence when sitting through another WT study article that churns out the same skewed scriptural references to King David/the faithful and discreet slave "class"? More watching their children get older and restless in a religious organisation that demands absolute loyalty to the latest interpretations of Scripture according to a committee of men in New York, praying silently that their children stay loyal to that organisation for fear of having to cut them out of their life, while feeling guilt and frustration at having to actively quash their children's hopes and aspirations for the future, knowing that college is out of the question, a fulfilling career is out of the question, that pioneering is the only option?
