Proudly Millennial

I have heard many times now in my young adult life that there is an expectation that our generation will not be as well off as that of our parents. As a generation we are facing some incredible challenges in this day and age. For example, we will be the first generation to see, and begin to combat, the impacts of a changing climate, we will see the population of humankind top out, we will see the an ice-free arctic and Antarctic, species extinction, a more complex, ever-shifting economic system, amongst a slew of other challenges. Those certainly are astonishing events that present staggering challenges. However, the concern from our parents are primarily rooted in the realm of economic well-being and rightly so given the historic economic implication of their lives and their parent’s lives. But as Courtney Martin, a recent TED speaker, appropriately questioned, why should we use that as our yard stick in terms of measuring our collective well-being? Our world is, without a doubt, undergoing fundamental shifts of which require a new, resounding flexibility as our challenges grow in scale and scope.

The post-depression paradigm of financial security and baby-boomer’s ideal white-picketed American Dream of more and more for one’s self and one’s family is no longer sustainable nor fitting for our changing, dynamic reality. We ought not recognize or measure success by the greater accumulation financial assets, or bigger houses, or more cars, or whatever and we ought not do it for a variety of reasons. First, as the world continues to grow more economically interdependent and people around the globe continue to ascend to the middle class, ecological systems cannot possible sustain the consumerism that the western world, and especially American opulence, has so famously made the desire of attainment. Secondly, there is an interesting divestment of social capital that was created as greater emphasis was placed upon the equation of wealth + professional clout = success in life. I believe that this divestment of social capital is related, directly and indirectly, to these incredible tragedies that have so sadly become commonplace, things like mass shootings, persistent racism and prejudices, and the like. And thirdly, we must come to recognize that our lives do not take place solely in the realm of economics. Our lives and the well-being of our species are inextricably linked to and founded upon environmental resilience and social inclusion.

The old paradigm in which our parent’s generation is using to evaluate our future prospects is obviously geared to produce an estimation that we will not be better off but that is because the paradigm is limited in its ability of what it evaluates. And we, as a generation, are at liberty to define the new parameters of how we measure success. And it is imperative that we redefine those parameters because in doing so it will redefine our focus as a generation in an ever-changing, ever-challenging world.

So, that is why I am proud to be millennial and excited to be living in the time in which we find ourselves. We have the power to redefine success, we have the power to rewrite the rules of economic engagement, we are at liberty to create systems that strengthen environmental resiliency and social inclusion. We have the freedom to create the new definition of success for our generation and it is a definition that not only shifts focus from being i-centric to we-centric but from being economic-centric to holistically socioeconomic and environmental centric.

WE ARE MILENNIALS. WE ARE THE FUTURE AND THE FUTURE IS NOW.