You Did It to Yourself

I just read this blog: Open Letter From a Millenial: Quit Telling Us We're Not Special. It made some good points about how younger generations struggle in ways we were not prepared for. And while I sympathize with some commenters who are older and experience the same struggles, I wonder if the mindset isn't still slightly different.

I was brought up to work hard at school, work hard at my job, and I was told I would succeed. My parents genuinely believe I can do anything. I agree that I'm pretty smart, but anything? Really? I'm too scared of failure. Trying is scary because the've made no room for failure. I settle for mediocre because it's safe. Smart or not, there are smarter more hardworking people out there. There are probably a lot of people with more impressive backgrounds too. As the author of the blog emphasized, I know I'm not special. I'm capable, but not special, and I'm not usually convinced that the full application of my capacity is worth the effort.

I have a Master's degree. I rocked grad school. But what does that mean? Not a heck of a lot. Not much at all. And I can be sensible. I know I am perhaps too educated. When I was worried that nobody would hire me post grad school because of this, my dad said to me, "You did it to yourself." And I felt some righteous indignation. I thought, you're my Dad, you're not supposed to say that. When I read the blog above, I was reminded of this comment, and I thought. No, I didn't really do this to myself because my dad was psyched when I said I was going to grad school and I was going to be teaching to pay my way. He told everyone.

My parents trained me up to be an academic--school was emphasized, but nothing beyond it. They acted like I had a bright and exciting future in front of me, but the vision stopped at that. I sometimes think it's bright, but not the brightness that was envisioned for me. It's the brightness of having a fully charged flashlight in a world of power outage. I have a job with insurance and other benefits. I think that's awesome. Lots of my friends don't have jobs. My last job didn't have benefits. It seems so cool that I have these very basic things when I know so many without. I do not live with my parents, and I can pay all my own bills. Go me!

Then a family friend asked me what I make. Feeling pretty proud of myself because, for a person with an English degree, I think I'm doing fabulously well. When I told her, her face fell, "that's not very much." No, no it isn't, but when I look around at the world today, I feel so much relief in the present knowing that I can take care of myself.

But don't get me thinking about the future. I started paying into my first retirement account at 22, the minute I got out of college. Back then, I was hoping I'd have a second account started for my parents because I know they won't be ready, and I can't rely on Social Security to take care of them. I can't afford that account I dream of setting up for them. I pay my bills and not much is leftover. I eat out maybe 4 times a month, and that's it. My expendible income is exhausted at that point.

Will I ever own a house? I have my doubts. I'm not sure I'll ever own a dog. Will I ever be able to afford kids? Maybe, but I'm not sure I'd ever be brave enough to take maternity leave to pop out tiny people to terrorize the earth.

Do I even want to invest in any of those things? I dunno. My fear about Social Security failing to take care of my parents and being entirely unavailable to me reflects the real concerns of my generation. The nation sometimes seems to be crumbling. I've thought about storing money under my matress instead of keeping a savings account, but then I think to myself, if the nation crumbles, will the currency even be valid? That's the world I live in.

Older middle class generations worried about buying a house and investing in stocks. Now they worry about keeping their homes and losing their jobs. I worry about the entire systems failure. If the banks fail and the nation shatters, I have nothing, not even the basic resources to feed myself. I live in a second floor apartment with a single north-facing window. Plants are doomed here. Maybe I read too much post-apocalyptic fiction, but those are my fears. My fears are not about being unsuccessful or losing my material wealth. My fears reflect a much greater potential for chaos in my future.

A Masters in English wasn't the smartest decision, no. I'll admit that. I should have married a farmer and worked with my hands because sometimes I think I should worry about a future where an education is worth nothing, but I was raised up to be an academic, to meet the expectations of an unsustainable American dream destined to whither before I could even attempt it.