In Defense of Generation Y

I have never been a fan of people scolding me for things that I have no control over.

I don’t actually think that anyone is a fan of that. That’d be weird. But I’ve always been pretty vocal about my hatred of being blamed for things that aren’t my fault.

So, one thing that’s been grinding my gears lately has been all the hate towards “Generation Y.”

I had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was born in the late 1980’s. You’ll have to bring that issue up with my parents.

The reason I don’t know about movies from the 1940’s isn’t because I’m uncultured. It’s because I didn’t grow up in the 1940’s, and I’m not a huge movie buff. I don’t even really know too much about movies from the 2000’s.

The reason I don’t know how to use a record player isn’t because I’m stupid. It’s because by the time I was old enough to listen to my own music, records and record players were no longer easily available. And CD players were. And guess what? The sound quality is actually better. I promise.

The reason I don’t know my friends’ phone numbers by heart isn’t because I’m too self-absorbed to remember them. It’s because there is absolutely no need for me to remember them when I have a tool that does that for me. You buy butter instead of churning it yourself, don’t you? And it’s not because you’re too weak to churn it—why would you bother spending your time doing something that’s completely unnecessary?

I’m tired of hearing about how I’m socially inept because I text instead of calling or meeting people in person. Since the founding of the Pony Express people have been looking for ways to not meet up with people face to face. It’s not just the people born between 1970-1995. 

I’m tired of being called lazy and entitled and unwilling to settle down and disrespectful and irresponsible and all of the other things people who complain about Generation Y say about us. And then, when I defend myself by saying any of what I’ve written above, they say something like, “Oh, not you,” or “Well you got a job right away so that’s better than most other people your age,” or some other placating remark that somehow suggests that I’m not “as bad” as the others. THAT is the exact reason we all supposedly feel entitled! Now I get to walk away from the conversation thinking that I'm special and better than the others because you told me so.

And for other Generation Y’s who have lamented about your own kind, I hate to point out that that makes you no better than the people you’re putting down. It means you somehow think you’re better than other people your age, and you’re exempt from their perceived flaws and shortcomings---but their perceived flaws and shortcomings is that they think they’re better than others, and exempt from flaws and shortcomings. See what I’m saying?

So I’m not even going to talk about the things I’ve done in my life that supposedly "prove" that I’m not lazy or entitled or socially inept or whatever else. I'm not going to distance myself from Generation Y. You mess with Generation Y and you mess with me.

And luckily, I have that college-level rhetoric training that you scoffed at, so I’m up for the challenge.

"They're all mistakes, children! Filthy, nasty things. Glad I never was one."

-Miss Trunchbull, Matilda

Words I Live By: "The Busy Trap"

If you only read one thing today, don’t even make it this blog post. Make it the article that this blog post is about: "The Busy Trap"

If you read two things, then I guess the second thing could be this post. I wouldn’t complain.

If you just said to yourself, “well, I already clicked on this blog post, and clicking on another link to read that article is just too much work,” then I’ll just give you a quick summary and some of my favorite pieces from the article here, and you can pretend you read it:

Summary: 

In short, the author describes how Americans make themselves so busy that they lose out on leisure time, mistaking it as an unimportant or unnecessary part of life, when the leisure time is actually what makes life what it is. And when we really delve into the heart of why we do this, the author believes it comes down to some sort of self-assurance that we need to feel, because others have decided they should feel it, and everyone has to keep up with the next person. 

Excerpts:

“I recently wrote a friend to ask if he wanted to do something this week, and he answered that he didn’t have a lot of time but if something was going on to let him know and maybe he could ditch work for a few hours. I wanted to clarify that my question had not been a preliminary heads-up to some future invitation; this was the invitation. But his busyness was like some vast churning noise through which he was shouting out at me, and I gave up trying to shout back over it.”

“It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.”

“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

“More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.”

The thing about articles like this is that, while they are great and inspiring and I’d love to model my whole life off of it, sometimes you just have to pick and choose what to take out of it. Because, let’s be real, I’m not going to just take to the forest, learn how to whittle and sit in a rocking chair (that I whittled myself) whittling more things and drinking tea (from a mug, that I most likely whittled myself).

So while it’s impractical and impossible to not ever say that I’m busy, what I really took away from this was trying to not use “busy” as some sort of masochistic badge of honor, or as a “one-upper.” Or, as the author puts it, “being a part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school.” So I try my best to duck out of “the busy trap” anytime I see myself falling into it. I see it as being a part of the solution. Nobody’s perfect, but it’s always good to try to improve, right?

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans"

-John Lennon