Why Millennials “Are the Worst”.
Rediscovering yourself at any stage in your life is difficult.
But being a 20 something within an era where ‘millennials’ seem to be the scourge of every other generations existence, it’s unfortunate that all of our aspirations are almost instantly discredited.
Being honest, as a woman this is something I’m already used to. But as many times as I’ve tried to redefine myself and my goals, this time is above and beyond more difficult.
Maybe it’s because things like this get more complex with age, and if I’m reinventing myself again at 45 it’ll be even harder, and if again at 65 even harder still.
My theory is that at this stage self-discovery is the hardest, which is both a sad but also beautiful thing.
Here’s why I think so.
Being in your 20s means you have just breached the barrier into the Adult World. We’re new at it, and we have a different way of doing it compared to previous generations, just as every set of 20 year olds had a different way of thinking compared to their predecessors.
Up until now Generation X was the most recent rise to adulthood. By this age (mid 30s to late 40s) they’re just beginning to feel seriously established with solid ground in their personal lives, careers, and within themselves. Then we came along, challenging them as the new underdog.
Personal Lives
Developing families and even marriage itself is being analyzed with a lot of scrutiny by our generation. Prioritizing different values outside of our personal lives and within them when making grand decisions about partners and children is intimidating when it’s newfangled and seems it may jeopardize a way of life you’re already accustomed to in an older generation.
Careers
Careers have become significantly technology-centric, a factor Gen X [along with every other generation] is trying to keep up with every day. We on the other hand, were raised in this. By the time most of us could read, we had the option of doing it on computers. This makes technology based industries very competitive between these two generations.
Sense of Self
Alfred Adler a Neo-Freudian Psychiatrist coined the term dethronement when referring to older siblings enduring damage to their egos when a younger sibling is born. I think this in large part is why the youngest generation to enter adulthood is often despised. We’re challenging an older generation that was once the newcomers, as the new-newcomers.
Just as they are critical of us, we’re forcing them to reanalyze their proficiency and worth in every avenue of their life, and I think it’s no coincidence that the first period of identity crisis (quarter-life crisis) occurs between the ages of 18–25, and the second (mid-life crisis) occurs on average between the ages of 40–45.
Now, as every younger generation passes through this ‘coming-of-age’, all of the older generations seem to want them to know that everyone dislikes them, and intend for them to feel bad for it. With accessible technology, it’s become easier and easier to surround the youth in these negative ideas.
And strangely enough, it’s working! And increasingly so:

Info from: www.nydailynews.com;Even millennials hate millennials; 9/4/15;
Each generation seems to have a more negative outlook on themselves, as time progresses. I think the rise in media coverage may have a hand in us subliminally internalizing hatred of our own “culture”.
Now I can’t even imagine how these statistics are most definitely compounded by race and gender and combinations of these factors. People of color despite whatever age they may be are constantly disenfranchised and dismissed, and now that we are attempting to normalize the concept of gender as a spectrum this plays into the credibility and worth society sadly still tries to attribute to a person on sight.
Now as negative as the majority of information in this may have seemed, what’s beautiful in this is what we have to look forward to. Acknowledging the natural bias within us, maybe we’ll be more forgiving when Gen Z (AKA Boomlets/iGen/Centennials) matures into adulthood.
I also hope that it means that as we get older our anxieties will remain mostly within ourselves in the form of self-doubt, opposed to per say societal doubt, which is arguably much easier to overcome.
