The Paradox of Being a Millennial.
One of the key problems of being a millennial is the problem of too much choice, especially for knowledge workers.
It feels like you can wake up in the morning and the possibilities are endless. You could do anything, but then this would mean commitment.
You end up doing nothing or being uncertain about your choice and half-committing because there is always this feeling that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
There are a lot of fences. Should you move countries, start your company and get funded, start creating content, work for a large corporation, or a smaller and more flexible company?
We want to travel the world, yet yearn to build deep and meaningful relationships.
We want to build wealth, yet we have the fear of missing out.
We want to focus deeply, yet Instagram and TikTok are ever-present.
Everyone that we know seems to have their life sorted out, but they don’t. This is the illusion of being the first generation that grew up with some of their formative years with the internet and social media. Everyone presents this curated version of their lives that includes all the interesting and fun parts, while conveniently skipping the boring afternoons, the long queues at the airport, and anything else that does not fit the image we want to project. But, we are fully aware of every part of our own lives, and so they do not match up to what we see online.
Everyone seems to have more fun, be more interesting, and have more success.
The Paradox of being a Millennial is that we have the most choice and opportunities of any previous generation, but this does not make us happy.
Making any choice feels like closing so many doors, that it is painful. And so, we only make choices when we absolutely need to, instead of using our gift of rationality.
