It’s no secret I am an optimist about the future. I’m a disgusting, filthy, rainbow-spewing optimist who believes the best days of the United States and the world are ahead of us. At the same time, it makes sense that people reject my ideas. After all, all you’ve got to do is turn on the news and there it is: our corrupt political system screwing us over, world conflicts spinning dangerously out of control, the older generations screaming at us that we’re lazy.
The millennial generation being lazy is the easy argument to win (we’re experiencing higher levels of debt and unemployment while working longer hours for less income than our parents had). What seems to be the biggest challenge is how to stay looking forward. Now let me make one thing clear: we still have big problems in society that are going to take some time to fix. I don’t intend to say the future will all be bright and rosy. We’re going to have huge challenges to take on. But for the sake of making you feel better today, here’s some things we ought to consider:
1. Peace has never been so common.
“What in the heck is that supposed to mean?! Haven’t you seen the rise in terrorism, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Saudi Arabia bombing their neighbors. Israel and Palestine? The world is more screwed up than ever before!”
Well, actually, it isn’t. According to statistics, the world is safer than it ever has been before. As it turns out, democracy might be a good way to stop people from killing each other. Democracy has let us talk about our problems rather than one crazed man on a throne who wants to kill the nation next door because he wasn’t invited to a dinner party. Military conflicts continue to exist, but in the timeline of human history things are going pretty dang swell.
2. Marriage rates are on the decline - that’s a GOOD thing!
Oh, the divorce rate is so scary. More couples these days are separating rather than staying together. One thing those rates aren’t telling you is that the millennial generation isn’t getting married at the rate our parents and grandparents are. Here’s the thing: the economy shifted, and now that men and women are on the job together (working longer hours for less pay as well), it means less time with the family and more financial frustration. Couples once madly in love are torn apart by the reality of economics.
Thankfully we’ve learned from the generations previous, even when they complain about how lazy we are. People are getting married older and many are forgoing marriage as a whole: why? Because now we’re living in a creative middle class society. The golden standard was once to get the 9-to-5 job that could pay your bills. You’d get married in your twenties, have children, come home and cook dinner and watch reality television, then start the day over again in a few hours. In a suburban society like the 1990’s brought us, that was the standard.
Not anymore. Millennials tend to learn towards different ideas of living. We now have the freedom to form an identity, to find ourselves before we settle down into a unit. Simply put it: millennials want to get married and start families, but they want to be successful in themselves before they become trapped in bringing up others.
This is a very, very, very, very good thing for society. We could be looking at less depression and a more satisfactory way of living. We’ll get back to the importance of the creative middle class, but keep that term in mind.
3. Clean energy is going to win.
Jobs in solar and wind are now in high demand and employing more people than the fossil fuel industry. Yes, this is a big deal.
Our generation is more aware of the importance of nature than ever before. Cities are being involved in urban renewal and green spaces, because the more trees we have around us, the better we feel. Seriously.
Businesses and start-ups are working hand in hand with the federal government to create more eco friendly ways of living. We may be on a societal shift. We're seeing that nature literally fixes us.
Think of the benefits of a clean energy city, state, nation and world. Less asthma and breathing problems. A better feeling of health for our people, and a stronger connection to who we are and where we come from. We’re finally figuring out that we can harness the unique factors of this planet in a way that preserves it and keeps businesses and economies moving. Clean energy is a beautiful thing.
I live in the desert mountains of New Mexico. There’s nothing more satisfying to me than stepping outside in the morning, peering off to those distant and massive mountains, and taking in a huge deep breath of pure air. With just that, I understand a tiny bit more every day how blessed I am to be living in such a pure and natural area of the country.
So every passing day we can go outside and breathe a little deeper, a little stronger.
4. Art is more accessible than ever before.
We’ve still got a ways to go on this, but I am of the opinion that we’re moving from a society of practicality and money to a closer embracing of art and culture. I am a huge advocate of the arts in every day life. After attending an art centered university, my life changed for the better. I don’t practice every form of art, but I see the beauty in it. I see struggling students with hardly a thing in their pockets but a satisfaction in their work. It goes from the basic idea of seeing more color in the world to as far as seeing your own ideas out of your head. Art is good for the soul, good for our existence.
That’s why the internet did wonderful things for the artistic community. The era of the starving artist is over. The era of the entrepreneurial artist is here.
There has never been a time like this before. Ever. Before the age of the internet, the artistic community was seen as a bunch of wealthy citizens tossing money at paintings they didn’t understand, operas they didn’t want to see, ballets they didn’t appreciate.
I don’t apologize for thinking this is a big deal. Think of how enriched our lives are compared to our parents before. We can get music right off a streaming service, see live performances of musicals from our living room. Learning about music, painting, elements of literature and the greatest films ever made is as simple as a search engine. What makes it even better? We can make a living off of it without starving. We. Can. All. Be. Successful. Artists.
That’s the creative middle class blossoming into view and only just beginning. I can self-publish a novel I’ve written and send it out to the world instantly. My music can be put online for anyone to serenade to. I can go out and make the kind of film I want because technology is so accessible. But I can also have a home, a marriage, children and pets. I can take the best elements of my childhood and merge them with my artistic dreams and support myself.
Is it difficult? Absolutely. But we’re so much better off than anyone else in history.
5. We’ve already got the optimism in us.
It’s true.
According to the Pew Research Center, millennials win the game of positivity. 49% believe the nation’s best years are ahead of us. That’s right. Get us into a room and half of us actually believe the future is brighter than the present. Doesn’t seem like a huge number to you? Well, 42% of Generation X members say the same, 44% of Boomers, and 39% for the Silent Generation. That’s a huge step forward.
I think we can get that number higher, and I know it will only grow. Perhaps it’s naive to be optimistic about what is coming ahead of us, but at our disposal is the highest chance for unity than ever before. Never has there been a chance for us to embrace the natural world around us as highly as now, or to understand the cultural uniqueness of other nations and people than this moment. Access to the arts is at an astounding level, and the individual is being explored like never before.
I don't believe it does us any good to look ahead and think of a dark, brooding cloud we call the future. What's the purpose of such a thing? Human life is so frail and so minimal in the grand scope of things, and if we cannot focus on small but wondrous developments in society then we're pretty much out of luck.
We are going to have unbelievable problems ahead. There will be rough years and there will be glorious years. Economies will turn south and they will boom. Tragedies will strike us and we will bond together as we always have. We’re human. We’re going to have problems. We must always look around our world and see the amazing, wonderful things in it that we’ve been able to put together that our parents, grandparents and ancestors were never able to dream of. Remember that. Go into your struggles with your head held high, because good things are indeed taking place.
