10 years a Millennial
When did I start getting old? It shouldn’t be a surprise to me I guess, since I hate just about everything that my generation enjoys: Instagram/Snapchat, Flappy Birds, One Direction, anything on Bravo - you name it, I probably hate it. However, as I’m sure my parents did (and their parents before them), I convinced myself that it was the result of a level of sophistication not shared by the rest of the population. It couldn’t be me that was on the decline, it was the world around me. But then one evening, as I laughed hysterically at the diarrhea scene from Dumb and Dumber during a Friday night at home (during which I was in bed by 11pm, and the day before I was planning to don a power blue Dumb and Dumber tuxedo for a party), I had an epiphany: holy crap (Pun intended - sorry), I am getting old, if immaturably so!
Of course, anyone older than 32 that is reading this will deservedly mock me for the suggestion that 32 is anywhere approaching old age - a fair criticism - but it wasn’t long ago that I considered 30 to be the hallmark age of a responsible adult. After all, by the time my parents were 30, I was already in elementary school. But by the standards of the Millennial generation, I’m very old, about as old as you can get, in fact, and still be considered a Millennial (by the approximate 1982-2004 birthday range of my generation). And while I may dislike a lot of things that Millennials love, there’s one area where I can sympathize with my generational brethren: struggles with finding direction and a meaningful career.
No matter what your opinion of the Me-First generation, there is no denying it: in the job department, Millennials got fucked (in the bad way). I was fortunate to enter the workforce a few years before the bottom dropped out, but the angst I felt about my professional opportunities still parallels what I see with younger adults today: desire to follow to one’s passions above what society says I should do, dissatisfaction with the rat race, higher value placed on lifestyle as opposed to money, and so on. College is supposed to prepare you for a job, and I went to one of the most prestigious colleges in the world. But it took me the past 10 years to truly internalize and accept (against my stubborn desires) a clear reality: college does a really shitty job of preparing you for the working world, and that the growth I needed to get where I wanted to go was ultimately up to me, and me only, to make happen.
I came into college thinking I had my life mapped out: I was going to study hard, date some, and party a bit, in that order. After graduation, I was going to continue on to a masters and PhD in astrophysics to prep for the life of a scientist on the fast track to a Nobel Prize. Ahh, the naivety of youth :) Fast forward four years and I had partied a ton, had “dated” exclusively between the hours of midnight and 4am, and didn’t fare much better in the academic department than the the Delta fraternity from Animal House. Perhaps more surprisingly in retrospect, as graduation approached, my only “job” opportunity was a packed 1980 BMW with no air conditioning and a Mapquest (yes, Mapquest) print-out with the destination “Bellagio Poker Room, Las Vegas” typed into the address field. A reclined front seat in the casino parking lot was my bed that first night.
Despite what I tell people in casual conversation, the real reason I moved to Vegas to play professional poker after graduation was because I had no fucking clue what I wanted to do with my life and poker was my only option aside from the dreadful thought of living with my parents at age 22. Yes I was a good poker player, yes I made good money, and yes I enjoyed the game, but I never derived any deep meaning from it - it was simply a short-term financial vehicle to pay the rent and distract me from my insecurities and inability to face my laundry list of what I saw as failures during college; failures borne from an inability to grapple with the realization that success during and after college wasn’t going to come easily, and that I didn’t have the emotional maturity at the time to deal with that reality.
There has been a lot of great research recently about the relationship between praise and perseverance/success (particularly in the Millennial generation). One particularly interesting study examined the effects of telling a child “wow, you’re so smart” vs “wow, you worked so hard”, and how the latter approach resulted in children who were significantly more likely to push through boundaries and temporary failures, whereas the former tended to result in children who gave up at the first signs of difficulty, lest they fail and be viewed as unintelligent. I’m not sure how I fell into the “give up when challenged” group in college (my parents always praised hard work and were incredible examples of its ability to transform lives no matter the initial conditions), but I fell hard and fast as i struggled to adjust academically and emotionally. That apprehension towards failure handicapped me for four years, and led me down a path of a string of jobs that I absolutely hated, including stints as a server at Olive Garden and as an unwitting applicant to what turned out to be a religious cult masquerading as a real estate group - not exactly the best use of four years and a nearly $200k education.
The same feelings of hopelessness and lack of direction followed me around as I skipped from job to job, including ones that seemed good on paper and that by the standards of former generations (hell, my own generation included) I was incredibly lucky to have; jobs that paid well but that resulted in me spending large amounts of money on distractions (cars, trips, parties) to mask the growing dissatisfaction with my life that continually bubbled just beneath the surface. Fortunately, I stuck with it and continued to make seemingly infinitesimal moves onwards and upwards towards something I really wanted - and in 2012, 10 years after I had been more lost and depressed and anxious than I had ever imagined possible, I found the opportunity I had waiting for. In the end, it was my girlfriend and parents who encouraged me to step outside of my comfort zone to find something interesting, and a great friend who made the connection that helped seal the deal. In the end, it was the good people I had been fortunate enough to know and have as a part of my life that helped me climb over that last hump and accept the insecurities and shortcomings that have hindered me the past 10 years.
Every day is still an emotional struggle to overcome the negative thoughts and fears of failure that lurk behind every major (and sometimes inconsequential) decision that I make: in life, in love, at work, and beyond. But I’ve slowly learned that my resume, and what I think I deserve (especially in this market and increasingly in the broader world in which we live) is only going to take me so far. At the end of the day, I have to take the next step and have confidence that it’ll lead me in the right direction. And I have to be willing to accept the potentially negative consequences of those decisions.
There no doubt it’s harder than ever to get any job, let alone a job that offers discretionary income and a level of personal satisfaction. To get what you really want, you have to be more willing than ever to push the envelope, take smart risks (and sometimes borderline-crazy ones if the situations present themselves), fail a bunch of times, and possibly do some really boring shit in the meantime. No one is gonna do these things for you, especially not in a generation that is stereotyped (often rightfully so) as me-first and inattentive. The best thing you can do is surround yourself with interesting people, “real” people who have your best interest in heart and don’t expect anything in return for the help that they provide. Despite the well-publicized payoffs of unscrupulous people in Wall St, big business, and government, the overwhelming reality is that good people will find success more readily because they attract other good people. And who knows, you may just meet someone who can help shine a light in a direction you never expected and that will lead you down the path to your dreams. Until then: work hard, meet good people, take risks, have fun, be patient, and don’t ever turn down an opportunity to improve yourself. You might be surprised at the result.