Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted
The dilemma of the underpaid millennial generation
Millennials are the most educated, worst paid generation to date. They are the savviest with unlimited potential, but they are earning less than ever. The average earning of adults ages 18–34 between 2009 and 2013 — $33,880, is the lowest since 1980, says The New York Times
Speaking for my generation- a fancy job title, seniority, loyalty & hierarchy are no longer promises of a better future. In fact with the current economic and global crisis, the world looks so bleak that most millennials try to live in the present. Being ‘future-ready’ seems a far-off lofty ideal.
They say “beware of the people who have nothing to lose”. That pretty much sums up the reason why the millennials are not risk-averse. Choices are easy when you have nothing to lose for a ruled-by-impulse generation.
“Millennials are no longer faced with a simple career ladder — more like a game of snakes and ladders! They frequently make sideways shifts, take temporary breaks, and reach up and across to more technical challenges. When they fail, they dust themselves off and try another ladder. I admire both their effort and bravery; it must surely make for some interesting experiences along the way — Miles Young, Chairman and CEO, Ogilvy & Mather Group UK
The media, our government, brands & corporations at large have tried to stigmatize this generation as wanderers and wanderlusters. We are always blamed to be going off the grid in search the so-called “experiences”. Experiences have been branded as the true currency of us millennials. Every brand from Airbnb to Tinder is trying to lure us with these newer, ‘experiences’.
But the saying — ‘Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted’- holds true in this case too.
In my personal understanding — ‘Relevance’ is the one true currency of this generation. Nothing sums up this 38.1 percent of this world’s population better than being a conflation of the digital revolution with the idea of generational change. Millennials can very well be the poster children/glorified ginuea pigs of change. Adapting from walkmans to disc players to shuffle pods and online music platform — we have not been blessed with a theory of constants. The variables have however not worn us down. As a mindset, ‘ non-settling’ is the feeling which feels home to most of us millennials. ‘Settling’ reeks of irrelevance, however untrue it might be.
The Messiah of us digital natives has rightly paved our ideology by preceding the situation with “Stay hungry. Stay Foolish”.
I just hope it never reaches a too literal sentiment.
