Eons before 40-hour work weeks were not enough to support an average life, Confucius said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” If a millennial was asked to rephrase this quote to reflect contemporary society, it would probably go a little something like this: “Do whatever will make you a lot of money so you can actually have a life outside of work.”
At some point in time, long before I was around, people actually went to school and looked for jobs based on a passion for a subject, and not the dollar amount of the salary. This has completely dwindled away, leaving the modern idea that the one thing that can make you happiest in the world is money. Granted, money is great. I love money, but because the world is so financially driven, the American people, especially millennials, have lost sight of what it means to truly do something you love.
If I’m being honest, I was never one who aspired to sit in the corner office of some big skyscraper in New York. I don’t want to drag myself through the front door of my home after an exhausting commute in and out of the city each and every night. If I want to “follow my dreams,” it would be in a big, old house with a big back yard with lots of dogs and an office that I can read and write in. However, reality seems daunting when I think about the financial obligations that come with full-on adulthood.
Look at it this way, college students sink thousands of dollars into debt to get a bachelor’s degree, and then sink thousands deeper to go to graduate school or law school just so they can make enough money to pay back the debt of their education and scrape up enough for decent living wages. Millennials “following their dreams” consists of making enough money to survive, to not have to live with their parents at the age of 30 and to maybe, just maybe, be able to pay off their home at some distant point in the future.
I never cared much about money, but it is undeniable that a lack of it makes life exceedingly difficult. Although money has always been relevant, it has never been as hard-pressed on a generation like the millennials since the time of the Great Depression, relatively speaking. The Baby Boomers could buy a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in a nice area for $190,000. Now, you’d be lucky to find a two-bedroom, one-bedroom house for that amount of money.
Millennials are driven by money, because we have no choice but to be so. We’re being forced to give up on actual dreams and aspirations that aren’t completely based around financial obligations. We currently live in the most expensive version of America in recorded history, aside from the fact that the average college graduate has between $30,000 and $40,000 in student loans that starts smacking their bank account six months post-grad.
When households are making nearly $90,000 a year and struggling to pay their bills, something is wrong and needs to be acknowledged. Millennials are being robbed of the financial simplicities of the generations before us through no fault of our own, yet we are blamed for being lazy, unmotivated and accused of being complainers.
I would love to follow in my mother’s footsteps and be a stay-at-home-mom, because I loved my childhood. But realistically speaking, that’s just is not even in the cards for me - unless I hit Mega Millions or something. So for all of my fellow millennials feeling the same pressure that I am, I’m sorry that this is the way it is. But my advice for you is, even if you are a slave to an office desk, fill every moment outside the office that you possibly can with your hobbies and laughter, adventure, friends, family and sunlight that you possibly can. Do not allow yourself to be run into the ground because of a dollar sign. Follow your dreams in any way you can, and accept that fact that life just is not as simple as it once was, and that none of that is our fault.