” If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
– Jim Rohn
First off let me just start by thanking you for reading my blog, you have many choices when you blog and I am honored to have you as a customer. Second, I would like to make one thing clear right off the bat; I have not entered the blogosphere so I could add my two cents about the most recent twitter war between Kanye and one of the Kardashians. I am not here to argue about why Tom Brady should be crowned King of the Universe, however true that may be, this is not Us Weekly or Sports Illustrated so you won’t be getting any of that stimulating analysis here. This is a blog for intellectual thought and social commentary and whatever else is on my mind at any given time.
Now, with introductions out of the way, let me get to writing my first post. You may have noticed two things before reaching this point, one being the title of my blog: “Couch Surfing Chronicles” and the other being the title of this post: “Let go of the Hand” and there are reasons behind both. For those of you who don’t already know me, and some who do, I spent the first year after graduating from college hopping between apartments, my old house, my new house, and friend’s couches. I have lived in Boston, Tampa, and Raleigh since July 2011. This may not seem overwhelming if not for the fact that the majority of that time I was not sleeping in my own bed. While I was in Tampa I lived in the living room of my friend Chris’s one bedroom apartment and spent my days, nights, and weekends on his sectional. I did this in order to cut down on living expenses while I worked an internship with the hope of earning a job that two months later I would quit for reasons which are neither here nor there.
This experience has left me with a new understanding of the “real world”. This mystical place that was preached about in the college lecture hall and manifested by the media. This understanding of the “real world” brings me to the title of this post. While in college I was a Founding Father of the Iota Lambda chapter of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. People always ask me why I joined a frat, which is a word that makes me cringe to even write. You wouldn’t call your country a cunt after all would you? My answer is always difficult to explain but I like to believe I joined a fraternity not only to make friends on my campus, but to help prepare me for life after college.
One of the most important lessons I learned from fraternity life came early on at a Division Conference when one of the alumni gave a speech about the difference between Generation X and Generation Y; the Millennials, my generation. Generation X was a nightmare on paper. They were a generation that, as a whole, partied too hard and didn’t concentrate nearly enough on what was supposed to be important, like school and their careers. However, when Generation X graduated they were able to break into the job market and become successful with more ease than anyone had expected given their wild behavior. The Millennial generation is the Yin to Generation X’s Yang. Us Millennials work extremely hard at the important stuff, we’re straight-laced, motivated, and career driven. We are making all the right moves except for one major flaw, and that is when we graduate and go out in search of jobs we are failing miserably. The experts equate this to one thing; we are too used to having someone hold our hand.
The Millennial generation has grown up a bunch of sissies, myself included. Throughout our lives we have always had someone showing us the way and making sure we didn’t get hurt. We are a generation of trophies for 5th place and helicopter parents. We grew up with moms and dads doing our science projects for us because it would be too upsetting to receive a poor grade. We went to school where teachers and professors and advisors told us what to do and when to do it. We are good at taking orders and following directions. We like to be told what to do because it is easy. The only problem is that in the real world all of this hand-holding ends. There is no one who is going to guide an adult through life telling him what steps to take and making sure he doesn’t make any mistakes along the way. The real world is exactly that, it’s reality, not reality TV. A director doesn’t yell cut when you don’t pay rent on time, and mommy and daddy can’t do your job interviews for you.
The Millennial generation is a generation full of entitlement. Millennials believe they are owed a job, and an apartment, and a perfect life. They have a right to these things because their whole lives they have been told they were the best even when they weren’t. Now all of a sudden, the economy isn’t great, jobs aren’t growing on trees, and we don’t know what to do because we have never truly faced adversity. Well I have an idea on how to fix all of this, go do something. Stop waiting to be shown the way and take a risk. Go live on a couch and let yourself fail, for once. Who knows you might surprise yourself and succeed.
Couch Surfing Chronicles 