Another reason I started this blog was the eruption and waves of op-eds and POVs on the Millennials. That generation. My generation. The scathing reviews from both previous and current generations, followed by passionate response pieces, both sides of the pro and anti Millennials waging a war on whether or not this generation was the best or the worst. I swore to myself that I would never join the conversation because I wanted to be Millennial agnostic. Regardless of what anyone says about the Millennial generation whether it be praising or bashing them, it really isn't relevant to who I am because it doesn't actually directly affect my life.
And yet, like anyone, I am drawn by my own reflection and need to at least take a look and voice whether or not I think it is accurate.
One of the main points of contention I have on the Millennial debate is the topic of entitlement. I don't disagree that Millennials feel entitled but I believe it's inevitable and they will eventually grow out of it, the same as when Gen X people were in their twenties or Boomers. The sense of entitlement isn't based on the generation they were born into but rather, just circumstantial of people who have progressed from being teenagers to young adults.
When you transition into adulthood, it is a stage of firsts. You are thrown into many, many new situations that seem accelerated because it went from zero to well, not zero. From not making any money to suddenly making a bunch of money (even if it's minimum wage, it's still a lot more than they were ever making). From having zero equity, to suddenly owning stuff. Having their own car, their own place, their own phone. From not sharing their life with anyone but their family to suddenly having to make decisions with a significant other. It's a pretty big change going from having nothing.
And when you get used to that level of incremental raise, your mind instantly expects the same to happen the next change you undergo. You'd think the next change would be just as exponential and life-changing.
For example, living in a bedroom to moving to your own apartment. Take into account the scale of that shift. A single room (that you don't even technically own) into a whole apartment with your own furniture, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom. I'd say following that relative scale, the logical next leap would be an apartment twice that size, if not more. I'd even say a fancy loft apartment. If you went from making no money to say, thirty thousand dollars, logically, you'd think you'd make twice as much in your next leap. That's just rational and what I'd imagine someone who was dealing with this for the first time would expect. This generation has yet to grasp the concept that their next leap is never going to be as big as the first. It will not produce exponentially larger results. It's
going to output the same amount of effort they put into it.
They are at the stage of their lives where the acceleration is starting to even out and plateau. Yet, they are naturally addicted to the rush one gets when they accelerate forward, and have yet to realize that sprints only works in short distances, not the marathon that is life. They haven't yet realized it yet because they're dealing with it for the first time. I don't think it's illogical to think that way when that's what you've been accustomed to - you expect the same results for the same efforts. When they finally realize, as all people eventually will, that moving upwards or forwards is just a build on what they already have, that's when what anti Millennials call 'entitlement' will stop. It's the realization that well, it's about 'growing' up, literally. You build on your current life. You add on to your current salary or career or apartment or social life - you don't get entirely new, improved ones. Unless you want to start from the beginning and burst forward again. This is a possibility they'll leap further than their first time - but they'll still have to start from the beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment