Dreaming Bigger Than The American Dream
Recently, I read an article about a report from accounting giant Deloitte that millennials have an average net worth of "only 8,000,” dropping 34% from 1996.
It pissed me off.
Articles like that are just a platform for entitled Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to complain about "youngsters today."
And here's why it's flawed: Baby Boomers and Gen Xers (which I'm a part of) had it best when it comes to graduating and having reasonable financial options available. Common. We did.
Also, how are we defining success? Being financially stable enough to own a house, get married and have kids? I propose that those measures of success are becoming antiquated. Millennials don't have the same ideals of possession and power that previous generations have.
Instead, most millennials seem to have priorities around fixing the problems in the world previous generations created and perpetuated.
Hell, our generations gave birth to the 1%, we loaded up the world with our waste and helped raise the world temperature rapidly with our disregard for the environment. The old ideas perpetuated racism and sexism, turning anyone but the powerful white male into a pawn, at best.
Scientists and even some economists always told us we'd leave a mess for generations to come. And we did.
The millennials are cleaning it up. They're choosing "me too" and equal pay, and not working for companies that produce money for the 1%. And we wonder why they aren't "worth more?"
Our generations don't understand them, because they can't be bought like we could with the massive house from the 80s — because they see that our money won't fix the world we left them. And if they had a mountain of money, they would just become the 1% we grew up idolizing and they grew up disgusted by.
I'd say they're redefining the American dream, but not quite. They're making it the world dream.
