What do you want to be when you grow up?
What was your response to this question?
A professional basketball player? Ballerina? Astronaut? Something unique and unattainable and so completely...millennial?
My answer was always the same.
"I don’t know yet."
And I’m not alone.
Unlike Generation X or the Baby Boomers, Millennials and Generation Z will have multiple careers in their lifetime. Older generations can not comprehend the ambitious imaginations of the twenty-something population that have been so deemed “millennials.” We were raised in the land of the free and the home of the brave and we were made to believe that we were special. That we could do anything.
A few breathtakingly overpriced degrees later, we come to realize, we’re really not that great. We’re not special. In fact, there are millions of other kids who think they’re just as special as we are...which makes us all even less unique.
The Nostalgia of an Overachiever
When I was in high school, I—along with many of my similarly minded classmate—signed up for Advanced Placement (AP) classes like they were one-stop-shops for unlimited free M&Ms. My homework desk was my battleground and my flash cards were my finest weapons. I polished and memorized them, traced over note after note, engraving the information into my brain. An empty notebook was my dominion and I ruled it fiercely.
The single proudest moment of my life was receiving a perfect score on the AP United States History exam. I studied to the point of tears and it had paid off.
But paid off for what exactly?
What did that coveted perfect score really get me? Out of a required history course in college. That’s about it.
It didn’t bring me any closer to knowing what I wanted to do with my life, where I should go to college, what I should study, what I should chose as my career. Sure, I got a really kickass free T-shirt, but where did that go on my resume?
Where We Go from Here
Fellow millennials, what was it all for? Why did we push ourselves to the brink of mental instability just for straight A's down our progress reports? What did we really learn?
We learned that we’re not that special. That the only thing a perfect score on the AP United States History exam will get you is a good chance at solving a Jeopardy! clue one day. That good grades aren’t everything.
Now we’re college graduates with some vague degrees in English, History, or Business, searching for the next step. And with each passing year, it becomes harder and harder to see the future, because...we are EXHAUSTED.
We're tired of the go-go-go mentality that we've been fostering since the sixth grade. We're tired trying to impress everyone and show them how great and different we are. We're done chasing down the front of the pack. We're through trying to be first.
Not because we're lazy or because we lack to ability to. But because we've been conditioned to push ourselves from day one, that we're just so darn tired of it now.
We’re tired from the studying, the late-nights spent memorizing the terms of the New Deal or the trajectory of the battle of Gettysburg. We’ve burnt out all our gas before our lives have really begun. Where can we go from here if we’re just too tired to care?
Well, we can silence the haters for starters.
We can build side-hustles that become companies, write books, and foster creativity. We can find our passion—or passions—and chase them to the ends of the earth.
Because we are special dammit. Our moms say so.
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