Life as a Millennial
We move to the cities. The happening places.
We love convenience. The coffee shop and brewery on every block. The lively nightlife. The potential for big possibilities. Where new opportunities are born every day and it seems like success can be had for anyone who reaches out to grab it.
We love a good story. In fact, we want all of our products to proclaim exactly where they came from, the person behind the label. We like our batches to be small, or at least we want to be told they're small, as if any sort of industrial manufacturing can really be 'small'.
We care about the environment, or at least we're aware of it. We may still drive our cars a little too much, indulge in food products that contradict our values. But hey, we're not perfect.
Just look at the baby boomers. At least we're not the baby boomers. We'll remind ourselves of that fact many times just to feel a little less guilty about how similar we are to the boomers in many ways.
We're caught in a flawed paradigm, unsure of where to flail to next
Wages are stagnant, inflation is sky high. Debt is as common as the college degree that does nothing for our career. We're angry, but we're still figuring out where to direct our rage.
Corporations? The government? Trump? Obama? Ourselves? We'd take it to the streets if we weren't so busy updating our status.
We yearn for more genuine connection, yet spend most of our time liking, swiping, and scrolling. Yeah, we know it's bad for us, that we're slowly becoming more and more drawn to pixelated reality and less engaged in the living, breathing world. But we can't fall behind our peers.
But that's 'life', in the 21st century.
Nihilism is ubiquitous. It's trendy to the point of being cliche.
But perhaps there's some hope. Maybe we'll start caring again because a life centered around meaningless existence will appear banal and boring. Morals and principles will be seen as hip, something worth exploring and embodying.
Perhaps our generation, with a touch of self-awareness and humor about our predicament, can rise to the challenge. We can see the situation as both awful and beautiful, an obstacle and an opportunity.
We can be realists but still dream of a better world.
We can educate and inform ourselves without devastating our ideals. Our nihilistic coping strategies will be replaced with uplifting healing tactics.
Our generation is full of defeated idealists, who have allowed their cynicism to override any possibility of redemption. It's time to view our situation as a growth spurt, full of pain, uncomfortable reflections and realizations, but necessary.
We may have lost ourselves in a haze of media confusion, misguided anger, and endless existential crises. But the experience can make us stronger, full of clarity and perspective, filled with measured optimism and a willingness to deal with the world as it is.
Life as a millennial isn't lost. And neither is our ability to find ourselves in it.
All uncredited pictures from pixabay.com or my personal account
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I was just thinking this morning the millennials have a decent chance taking down the current banking system. A lot of that probably has a lot to do with you guys getting saddled with much student debt. It’s exciting to see what you could accomplish when you reach your 50s.
I think the banking system will take itself down, ultimately. But I'm hoping everyone, millennials and all other generations, are a large part of it.
Consider me, all in