The Millennial Mindset- Day 22
It’s a funny things to be born into a time, place and culture with many expectations that will be placed on you throughout your lifetime. One of my best friends always say: “We are all born into a cult… a cult of our parents beliefs, the environment around us, our education system, and the way we are raised.” And to truly evolve we must spend our entire adult life unlearning what doesn’t belong and choosing to keep what resonates.
Because at the end of the day integrity is a personal choice. We have to decide what our moral compass looks like before we can follow it. And again depending where you grew up that could look like religion, politics, oppression or privilege that becomes our guiding light.
I’m a millennial and it’s been interesting growing up in this world where opinions and a reputation would be formed on this title without anything in my control. In my mid twenties I remember working at a mechanical company for some hard working blue collar types in the boomer generation.
This one manager we will call Steve loved to dig into me and the other few millennials about our age group and all the things wrong with it. I was definitely an exception to the stereotype being one of the hardest workers and self starters in the company. Steve knew that and would allow me to push back.
The funny thing is the what he talks about negatively with my generation is being lazy, overly sensitive and idealistic. You know we are the “participation trophy” generation. What’s commonly misunderstood , or rather asked is how did we get this way? The truth - it’s the “cult” we were raised in.
Playing soccer at 8 years old I had no idea what a participation trophy was nor did I ask for it. But Jimmy’s mom (or dad) felt bad for his kid because he’s not athletics so they came up with the idea. And a lot of parents had a hard life growing up in poverty and didn’t want that for their kids, so they created every opportunity for them that they never had. What started with good intentions quite possibly ended up in failing to teach work ethic. So on and so forth.
Which in truth has led to giving us a millennials a complex as we reach adulthood. We are told we’re lazy and don’t work hard, but we can’t get jobs out of college. We’ve become shamed for wanting recognition for being involved when we were taught we were raised in a world that rewarded participation. Ans so we resist, and start thinking for ourselves. Unlike the generation that raised us we start asking questions.
Does the way the world work make sense?
Is this really the best way to do things?
Is suffering necessary?
And then we are mocked for not just putting our head down and grinding. Which leads to more resistance from those that came before us.
So what am I getting at here? We are the product of our environment, our culture and the “cult” we were born into. And if you haven’t yet, start asking “why” to everything. This isn’t intended to be cynical, but only to help you gather all the information for yourself. You’ll spend 20 years of your life being programmed a certain way consciously and subconsciously, and the only way to live optimally is to choose to wake up and decide for yourself what is true.
