Success in life once was measured by the size of a person's house, the amount of money they made and the family they had. The idea was that once you graduated high school, or if you were lucky enough to attend a university, you'd get married, buy a house and have a family. It was the "American Dream." But what I've witnessed over the past few years is that the meaning of life's success no longer depends on the size of your house or involves getting married and having a family. It's not something we, as millennials, stress. Instead what I've come to excitedly realize is that we value life experiences and memories higher than we do material items and relationship status. (Come on, have you ever heard of Tiny House Nation?)
We are a generation in which the majority go to college. This means we get to pretty much redo high school all over again, except we turn 21 halfway through and we don't have our parents watching over us. Our main responsibility is schooling all the way up until 22 or 23 years old. We practically live off memories and friendships because our housing situation involves small, crappy dorm rooms, or tiny apartments, or messy and overcrowded houses. We spend most of our time mingling and making memories, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
For our parents' generation, and practically every generation before that, getting married and having a family was the number one thing people wanted out of life. It was their goal. (Not that having a family and buying a house aren't on the list of things we want out of life.) But now, we believe that before we do these things, we should experience life to the fullest, travel and make amazing memories with our friends and significant others first.
I am so happy to be a part of a generation like this. I am 21 years old, and I have so many amazing life experiences; I have made so many memories and have been blessed to meet so many different types of people. The American Dream is not based on the traditional idea of success anymore, but it is made by each person, individually, and what their plans to do with their life involve.
