I apologize for the late post! I usually like to write ahead of time so that I can schedule publication for the morning. That just didn’t happen this week. So, here we are. Better late than never!
I’ve been reading a lot this summer. It just so happens that every book I have read in the last couple of months has been poignant in some way or another. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given I’m reading more than just romantasy…as fun as dragons and fairies are (IYKYK), getting out feels a bit like a breath of fresh air.
Many of the books I’ve read have had similar themes, even though they are vastly different stories in vastly different genres. They all seem to explore the necessity of taking risks and getting out of your comfort zone. Seeing yourself as more than the stories you’ve told yourself.
I haven’t looked to see how old the various authors are, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are all millennials. Or maybe an young GenX or old GenZ. All the books are relatively new, written in the last 10 years or so. They culturally feel millennial…and so, to me, the timing feels perfect.
If you’re reading this and you’re not a millennial, let me explain.
Millennials were told the following: If you go to college, you’ll get a good job easily, you’ll be financially secure, get married, have 2.5 kids, a dog, and the house with the white picket fence. You’ll work for 30-40 years, and then you’ll retire. The American Dream.
Except, that’s not what happened. At all. We went to college, took out student loans, and then lived through multiple recessions. We had difficulty finding jobs, and, when we did find jobs, they had low salaries. Millennials are the first generation to not be better off, financially, than their parents. Rates of buying houses, getting married, and having children are at an all time low. Some of these trends are continuing for GenZ, but they at least had forewarning and were emotionally prepared.
So, what does an entire generation do when the future they were promised doesn’t come to fruition?
Like most generations, the answer is in the art.
Many millennials are having to completely redefine who they are. They are reimagining the kind of life they want to live and the kind of world they want to live in. In all honesty, if things go the way the rest of our adult lives have gone, we are probably just laying the ground work for GenZ to actually make these things happen.
Imagination is great, but you need action to change the world, or at least to change your own life. You have to take risks in order to move forward. Taking risks means you will fail, at some point. The fear of failure keeps most people from trying at all. But, as the old saying goes, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” While taking a risk means you might fail, it also means you might succeed. Millennials are getting to the point where the need to change outweighs the fear of failure. Hence, story after story of people choosing to overcome their fears to move forward toward a different future.
Notice I didn’t say better.
When you take a risk, there is no guarantee. Making changes of any kind, big or small, might have a net positive or net negative effect. However, you certainly won’t know until much after the fact. Even so, failure or anything net negative is still never a total loss. You always have a lesson to be learned or something to be gained.
It is for this reason I have few regrets in life. My “bad” decisions worked out for me in the end, even if I still had to suffer some sort of negative consequence. Every major “mistake” laid the groundwork for something good that I couldn’t imagine my life without—relationships, experiences, wisdom.
As a result, I’ve become a master of “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
And
“Nothing is the end of the world except the end of the world.”
Having this perspective has helped me develop gratitude for my past and even more gratitude for the infinite paths ahead. There is a certain peace in knowing your next failure is just as close as your next success. It gives you the courage to try something, knowing if it doesn’t work, you can try the next thing.
As always, though, “try” is the key word. There is no success without effort and risk.
If you have something you want to try, what is the smallest step you can make to move forward? One small step isn’t scary or difficult.
If you took that step, what’s the next smallest step you can take?
Can you take three steps?
That’s all it takes, one step at a time.