I recently returned from a short trip abroad, and I got to thinking about how taking time off translates to a “life lesson.”
(We’re approaching the end of a decade, and I tend to get reflective around milestones. I can’t help it. Not sorry.)
How many of us use vacation to take a hiatus from life, particularly our jobs? We need a break from the burnout of our day-to-day, a time to dream of infinite possibilities.
What it would be like to exist as a different person in a different place?
Who could I be, if every day was like this one?
Eyes wide, heart open, blissfully aware. (Likely ignorant.)
I don’t know if it’s me or all millennials my age, but lately, I feel particularly lost when it comes to my career.
For the better part of a decade, I’ve worked in social media, an industry that has fundamentally changed the fabric of society. It’s a discipline often misunderstood, and at one point, I loved being on the cutting edge of a new technology.
But during the last 10 years, I’ve watched it evolve into a tool that cultivates consumption over creation. A tool that influences everything from our sense of self-worth to our political process. A tool that has required me to stay connected around the clock. It’s been exhausting.
Talk about a disconnect: We’re more hyper-connected than ever and simultaneously out of touch with our internal power and sense of purpose.
A never-ending, thumb-scrolling dexterity: looking for stuff we had no need for or intention of finding.
Did you know that social media, by design, was meant to exploit consumer behavior and become addictive? Scholarly research supports that there is a neurological response via rewards- and dopamine-driven feedback loops. (Read more on that here.)
For this reason and many others, I feel that millennials are a test generation.
We’re held responsible and unfairly blamed for a lot. We bridge the gap between so many things that existed before us and what will come to fruition for the generations that follow.
When it comes to technology, for example, we’re responsible for teaching older generations how to use it effectively, and younger generations how to use it responsibly.
We know the older world yet can’t seem to find our place in the new one.
We know where we come from, but we’re not quite sure where we’re going or how to get there.
Much like my recent trip, it’s like having three minutes to transfer intercity direct trains, three times in between multiple countries without having ever been there before, without knowing the language to ask for directions, and without Wi-Fi to look it up.
You just make an educated guess and hope for the best, course-correcting along the way when you fuck up.
We’ve been groomed and programmed for a world that no longer works, and we’re not being given the proper resources to support, sustain, or fulfill us.
I don’t think it’s “entitled” to ask for a career that brings joy, especially if we have to spend one-third of our entire lives doing it. (Even though the eight-hour workday is entirely outdated, but that’s a whole different conversation. Work smarter, not harder.)
I don’t think it’s “entitled” to ask for balance, time off, and the ability to completely disconnect. It’s so unhealthy to pride ourselves on how many hours we work per week, or how many days/weeks/months its been since we took a vacation.
I don’t think it’s “entitled” to simply want to enjoy life.
For me, I want a career that enables me to contribute something greater to the world and to help those I love. I know that means working for myself and continuing along this entrepreneurial journey, but I’m not yet certain in what capacity. I do know that I’m paying a lot of attention to what my soul doesn’t feel connected to, so I can make space for what it does.
If I’m keeping up with travel metaphors here, I’m in an airport, and I have a really long layover. I’m not even quite sure where I’m going, but I know I haven’t yet reached my final destination. Because the engine needs work.
To bring this full-circle, I think it’s up to our generation to redefine what success means.
What does it mean to you?
“Money is not what we really want. What we want is freedom, joy, creativity, love, connection, community, energy, health, contribution, peace.” – Kyle Cease, The Illusion of Money
