Dear Millennials: You’ve Got a Decision to Make

Dear Millennial, what’s your plan? 

At the age of 17 or 18, you sat begrudgingly next to your mom as she filled out a FAFSA form on our behalf. As she filled in the social security you only knew half the digits for, your mind went instead to what time soccer practice started, what color dress you should wear to prom, or how much longer you could postpone studying for that social studies exam.

Maybe this was the first time you ever spoke about finances with your parents, and the tangible awkwardness you felt made it hard to ask the questions you didn’t even realize you had. 

You felt no concern for the weight your signature at the bottom of that page would carry. The wheels for attaining a 4-year degree started years ago and you, like your peers, would need to earn a 4-year degree in order to compete in the future job market.

Two recessions and a pandemic later, you find yourself among the most educated generation in history working a low-wage job which requires little to no application of your field of study while hemorrhaging money you don’t have to pay off thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loan fees. 

And now you’re angry. 

I get it.

Trust me, I get it.

The social experiment failed but you’re the one forced to pay the ramifications for it. 

For approximately the next 30 years. 

The way I see it — you have a decision to make. 

You can absolve yourself to a life of frustration and anger – content to groan about how society screwed you over and how you’ll forever be a victim to an outdated metric of success…

OR.

You, like me, can say “screw it,” and make the decision here and now to pivot into something new. 

Something fresh.

I’m not asking for you to become the next Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Jeffery Bezos but I am asking you to be brave enough to bet on yourself again. 

The way you did back in high school before you knew what you wanted to do with your life or before you realized that the world you were preparing for would never come to pass. 

The potential of this generation astounds me.

We were raised in the era of both terror and technology, tempered by two recessions, and are just desperate enough to realize that while there may be some risk to seeking a life of entrepreneurship, we simply can’t afford to seek out the lives we were raised to seek. 

The world is changing fast, and I for one am ready to put aside the victim narrative and adapt from a lifestyle of just surviving to thriving. 

I’m willing to take a bet on you here in 2022. 

So again, I must ask you,

What’s your plan?