Defining “enough.”

Am I a ‘lazy millennial’ for taking days off?

Every night around 8, I start to count down to bed time. I re-watch a favorite show on Netflix, I triage tomorrow’s to-do list, and I build up my Tumblr queue. Basically, anything that get’s me to around 10:30 because that’s when I can start my pre-bed routine and get in bed by 11.

I hate this part of my day.

I’m supposed to be relaxing, winding down from a hard day of working and hustling, of taking care of my current clients and trying to find new ones. In between going to the gym, doctor’s appointments, housework, taking care of the dogs. Like every boss I’ve ever had in retail says, there’s always something do do. So, naturally, relaxing isn’t in my list of abilities. I can’t remember a time when I was able to actually just unwind without feeling incredibly guilty. Maybe it was the way I was raised, maybe it was some deeper issue that I haven’t uncovered in therapy yet. Either way, I take on as much as I possibly can. No, wait. That’s not right. Took on. That’s who I used to be.

For years I over-worked myself. With everyone saying my generation is the worst generation — that we’re all lazy, that we’re entitled, that we don’t work enough — I force myself to prove them wrong. We’re seen as party-obsessed, not wanting to work, feeling entitled to everything and anything we can get. We get tattoos and dye our hair weird colors and we never, ever want to work. We just want to make money. So of course I’m going to do more than I physically and mentally should. I’m going to be available to work on holidays, weekends, or whenever my competition isn’t working. I’m going to be proving my worth. That I’m good enough. That I’m better than the rest of my peers because I can do it all.

But I can’t do it all. And I shouldn’t have to.

By painting my generation with a broad brush, we’re not looking at individual circumstance. We’re not understanding why some people of my generation feel entitled, why they still live with their parents, why they don’t have jobs, and we’re not see those working too hard to try and live independently. We could shift the blame to the generation(s) who raised us: the ones who wanted to give us more than they had, the ones who worked hard so they could send their kids to college debt-free, the ones who either don’t want to empty the nest or the ones who understand what it’s like to be young, poor, and living on your own. We can call them enablers, we can say they spoiled their children, gave them unrealistic expectations of what the real world is. In the same breath, we can blame the parents who made sure their kids had a great work ethic, who made sure they worked for everything they had, who made sure their child knew the value of a dollar, and who pushed their kids to get themselves into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt before they even turned twenty-five. It’s no wonder that millenials are seen as the “cheapest” generation. Most of us can’t get loans for cars or houses because of how much debt we’re in just for getting a college education, or from the simple fact that we can’t find a steady paying job.

In both situations, we’re looking at burn out, therapy bills, and never ending-migrains. We’re looking at someone who, when they finally enter the real world, can’t handle what it takes. We’re looking at someone who has been in the “real” world since they graduated high school, or before then, who can’t handle anything anymore.

I don’t want to be one of the ones who can’t handle doing everything anymore. I don’t want to admit that I can only handle working 40-hours a week, when I used to be able to handle 80. I don’t want to not answer my client e-mails on days off, or not work on my days off — but I have to. I have to set boundaries. I have to take time to take care of myself. I have to find a work/life balance or I won’t actually be able to live. We millennials, generation y-ers, twenty to thirty-somethings who are just trying to get by need to cut ourselves a break. Maybe we aren’t following the paths our parents that we’d take, or are making life choices that confuse the generations that came before us.

But that doesn’t mean we need to work ourselves to death.

We can relax. I can relax. 40 hours a week over a span of 5 days is enough. I am not definied by the amount of things I can cross off my to-do list. Just because I work from home and make my own hours does not mean that I need to be available at all times to my clients. I’m not a parent; I don’t need to be on call 24–7. I can take time to just watch television, to waste hours on Pinterest, to do whatever I want to do and I don’t have to feel guilty about it.

I’m only human. There’s only so much I can do. I do enough. I am enough.