Generation Shaming

I started my second year as an English Teaching Assistant this week.  Our orientation was on Tuesday, and it was really interesting to meet and talk with other international wanderers of my age. 20-somethings from Germany, Spain, Ireland, Australia, England, China, Canada, and all over the US bonded over French breakfast pastries and tiny coffees. A few days later, I learned I was not part of the 50 Finalists who sent in video auditions for the "Best Job in the World;" a year of traveling and blogging.

These little moments made me think for the first time about how many wanderers are actually out there...it's not the rarity I kind of thought it was. To me, this revelation is really positive. I feel like it is proof that humanity is evolving...that we are becoming more open and interested in looking outside ourselves, in connecting with other people from other cultures, in making choices based in happiness and love and curiosity.

Then I somehow get lost on the internet and start feeling guilty about everything.

First there was this article about why my generation sucks. We say silly things like "follow your passion" instead of "work hard to build a secure career." We think we are special. And the older version of the article, when I first read it, said that you'll know if you're a narcissistic Gen Y'er (aka millennial) if you have a blog. This is a sentiment even one of my closest friends shared when I told her I was going to start writing mine...assuming I was going to use it as an evil platform to trick the world into paying attention to me.

Then today I stumbled upon this video of a young woman quitting her job by dancing. I didn't find the video particularly inspiring or even very interesting...but what got to me were the comments. (I need to stop reading comments on the internet, honestly. They are never clever, insightful words from someone wise I can learn from. Instead they make me temporarily doubt my hope for humanity. The internet just makes people MEAN!!!)

"You must be both a millennial, unemployed and likely taking the "graduate-school cop-out" on the back on your Baby-Boomer folks. Not only will you become a sheep of the Chinese very soon, but better learn to count without using your fingers. The underclass Chinese use them to eat."

"Yes, you sacrifice your life for a paycheck. That is the deal that we've all agreed to. Why are you whining about it?"

"Stupid Millennial. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD. Encouraging such garbage will not make our society better nor will it help our youth of today who are some of the most greatly misguided, misinformed, immoral and unconscionable people ever to walk the planet."

I'm speechless! The judgement, the blame, the idea that "well I suffered so I'll be damned if you don't have to go through the same hell that I did!!!" And that's what they call life. That's "what we've all agreed to."

Sure, there are some problems with my generation. Why are so many little white boys taking guns to school to murder children? And have you ever seen the horror that is "The Bling Ring?" But I'd like to think that most of my fellow millennials are changing things for the better. We don't blame others for our life choices and the prisons we've put ourselves in...we take responsibility and do something about it.  We do the "real world" when neccesary; we join the Army to pay for college, we wait tables full time to pay for an apartment while in school. But after that...

Why is it laughable to follow your passion? Wouldn't it be better to make sacrifices for a job you actually love? To use your unique "specialness" (we all have it...) to make BIG contributions to your profession, instead of punching a time clock for a paycheck and counting down the days until you die? And this whole illusion of a "secure career" kind of faded for me after the economic crisis when most of my family lost everything they sacrificed their youth to build. Life shouldn't be about suffering until some unknown point in the future. Nothing is secure. There is no future. Things change. And spending our lives focusing on passion, love, and happiness doesn't seem to me like such an appalling sin.

I don't write my blog because I crave attention. I write because it feels good to write and because I like recording the great moments of my life. Like anyone who has ever kept a diary. I put it online because I want to keep my family updated and I live so far away. I know the people who care about me and want to keep in touch will read it too. If there's ever a stranger that wanders to this page, I'd like to hope that maybe we have something in common...fears or questions or hopes and dreams. That we make a connection, no matter where in the world we are.

I am a humanist. I believe that we are evolving. I understand some people have lived their lives suffering and dying inside because that's what they were told life was about. But it isn't, and I don't think the miserable ones should get to force anyone else to have to live that way, just because it's fair.

After all, this is all just a dream, you know? None of it really matters. The jobs, the money you make, the weight loss struggle, the sickness. Not even Obamacare, political affiliation or the New World Order. None of these define who you really are, and none of them leave with you when you die.

Just be happy! Be nice! And try your best, every day.

And to my fellow Generation Y'ers...don't let anyone guilt you into giving up on hope.