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29 myself, and going through something similar. Millennials like us aren't allowed to grow up, it doesn't matter how successful or educated we are. In fact, the

29 myself, and going through something similar. Millennials like us aren't allowed to grow up, it doesn't matter how successful or educated we are. In fact, the more we accomplish the more we are disinfranchised because society merely wants us to be consumers, go to work, pay the bills, and try not to cause any trouble. We aren't supposed to be anything more than consumer wage slaves. Our generation has been brainwashed since we were children with identity politics, identity consumerism, and identity propaganda. We've been demoralized to believe in a system that is so utterly corrupt and rigged against us that there really isn't an answer to your question. You've already screwed yourself with a useless college degree and likely debt, and literally paid them to brainwash you into believing what they taught you actually has relevance to the real world. It doesn't, which is partly why you're feeling what you're feeling. My best advice to you is stop doing what anyone else tells you, stop following the path society wants you to, and in fact avoid the things you're supposed to do. Start a daily meditation practice, take care of yourself, eat well, focus your energy on creating value for others, and put all the distractions down and go outside. Don't subscribe to propaganda, don't identify with anything anyone else tells you to, listen to your intuition, study things that interest you on your own always. Learn to teach yourself whatever you're interested in. Stop expecting the world or anyone else to hand you anything, and become the best problem solver you can become. Everything else is just noise.

dionidium 10y ago
> Millennials like us I think it's worth mentioning that almost none of what you've said is new to Millennials. People were expressing the same sentiments in the 80s and 90s. My parents and their hippie friends were expressing the same sentiments in the 1970s.
- mysticlabs 10y ago
  While it might not be new, it doesn't change the fact that it is still happening, and actually gotten worse. Many of those people you're referring to likely ended up disenfranchised later in life as well, some of them may have even ended up in jail (which happened to a few of my Dad's hippie friends). Many of those people you're referring to never had the chance to grow up to be functioning members of society which further illustrates my point. If you gave me a choice, I would love to exchange the levels of corruption and economic conditions from the 70's, 80's, and 90's for whatever the hell it is we have today. There were 10x the possibilities then there are today, and society in general was much more free compared to the present. Our parents didn't grow up in a surveillance state, sure maybe they had some run-ins with the police when out in public, but that was it. There is no privacy anymore, and if you do or say anything that doesn't fit a politically correct narrative you're not only unemployable, but pretty much ostracized from society today.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    >If you gave me a choice, I would love to exchange the levels of corruption and economic conditions from the 70's, 80's, and 90's This is a pretty rose-colored view of the era that included the Vietnam War, interest rates at 20+%, Iran-Contra, an assassination attempt on the President of the U.S., the Cold War and the associated threat of total societal destruction, the uncertainty surrounding the end of communism, at least two deep recessions, a war in Iraq, vastly fewer rights for LGBT groups, much higher crime rates in U.S. cities, the crack epidemic, the emergence of AIDS, and so on and so on and so on. Your generation isn't experiencing anything more novel than the ones that came before it. Your problems might be different, in some ways, but the sky isn't falling.
    - refurb 10y ago
      You missed the employment rate that sucked. Anyone who thinks the 70's were better than what we have now has no idea what they are talking about.
chjohasbrouck 10y ago
This seems awfully cynical to me. There's a big difference between slavery, and working a job because the money affords your preferred lifestyle or life goals and you've decided that the positives outweigh the negatives. A difference so big in fact that I find it confounding that a term like "wage slave" even sees regular use. I wonder how actual slaves (of which there are more today than at any other point in human history) would feel about such a term. The two things are so different that your advice to OP is that they should stop. Try giving that advice to an actual slave. You can choose to work or not to work, it's an option we all have because we're fortunate enough to be members of a society that is mostly civil and mostly good, and work is easier and more rewarding in our part of the world than it has ever been anywhere else, or at any other point in time. My advice to OP is to find the job where you can have the largest impact, find a cause you care about outside of work, and donate a percentage of your income to it. If it's not fulfilling to you to use that income to live for yourself, you can seek fulfillment in working for a social good (it sounds like that's something you want to do anyway). Ben Horowitz says you shouldn't follow your passion: http://a16z.com/2015/05/28/some-career-advice-for-all-you-recent-graduates/ http://a16z.com/2015/05/28/some-career-advice-for-all-you-re... I think this is great advice with a strong basis in reality. You said you wanted to make an impact and fix things socially? You will do more for that by doing whatever it is you're best at, and using the influence and wealth that earns you to affect positive change socially. Maybe you won't work on it directly, but indirectly your impact will be far greater if you do whatever it is you're best at, whatever that may be. Personally, I choose to live a frugal life and accumulate wealth. It's going to compound interest over the course of my life, and when I'm gone it's all going to causes that I care about. That's because I could donate $1 today, or I could keep it invested and donate $5 when I die. I may never actually work on social issues directly, I may not be here to witness my earnings going to important causes, but this is how I'll have the largest impact that I possibly can in terms of doing a social good. Not by doing what I'm passionate about, but instead by doing what I'm good at. Identify what you want to do with your life, then figure out how you're going to accomplish that by doing what you're best at. Your life can have almost any kind of impact on this world that you want. It's not limited to the scope of your profession, and the size of your impact is limited only by how hard you're willing to work.
apineda 10y ago
I'm just getting through "How I found freedom in an unfree world", It's amazing and touches on a lot of themes of this post, Please read it. :)

dionidium 10y ago

> Millennials like us I think it's worth mentioning that almost none of what you've said is new to Millennials. People were expressing the same sentiments in the 80s and 90s. My parents and their hippie friends were expressing the same sentiments in the 1970s.

mysticlabs 10y ago
While it might not be new, it doesn't change the fact that it is still happening, and actually gotten worse. Many of those people you're referring to likely ended up disenfranchised later in life as well, some of them may have even ended up in jail (which happened to a few of my Dad's hippie friends). Many of those people you're referring to never had the chance to grow up to be functioning members of society which further illustrates my point. If you gave me a choice, I would love to exchange the levels of corruption and economic conditions from the 70's, 80's, and 90's for whatever the hell it is we have today. There were 10x the possibilities then there are today, and society in general was much more free compared to the present. Our parents didn't grow up in a surveillance state, sure maybe they had some run-ins with the police when out in public, but that was it. There is no privacy anymore, and if you do or say anything that doesn't fit a politically correct narrative you're not only unemployable, but pretty much ostracized from society today.
- dionidium 10y ago
  >If you gave me a choice, I would love to exchange the levels of corruption and economic conditions from the 70's, 80's, and 90's This is a pretty rose-colored view of the era that included the Vietnam War, interest rates at 20+%, Iran-Contra, an assassination attempt on the President of the U.S., the Cold War and the associated threat of total societal destruction, the uncertainty surrounding the end of communism, at least two deep recessions, a war in Iraq, vastly fewer rights for LGBT groups, much higher crime rates in U.S. cities, the crack epidemic, the emergence of AIDS, and so on and so on and so on. Your generation isn't experiencing anything more novel than the ones that came before it. Your problems might be different, in some ways, but the sky isn't falling.
  - refurb 10y ago
    You missed the employment rate that sucked. Anyone who thinks the 70's were better than what we have now has no idea what they are talking about.

chjohasbrouck 10y ago

This seems awfully cynical to me. There's a big difference between slavery, and working a job because the money affords your preferred lifestyle or life goals and you've decided that the positives outweigh the negatives. A difference so big in fact that I find it confounding that a term like "wage slave" even sees regular use. I wonder how actual slaves (of which there are more today than at any other point in human history) would feel about such a term. The two things are so different that your advice to OP is that they should stop. Try giving that advice to an actual slave. You can choose to work or not to work, it's an option we all have because we're fortunate enough to be members of a society that is mostly civil and mostly good, and work is easier and more rewarding in our part of the world than it has ever been anywhere else, or at any other point in time. My advice to OP is to find the job where you can have the largest impact, find a cause you care about outside of work, and donate a percentage of your income to it. If it's not fulfilling to you to use that income to live for yourself, you can seek fulfillment in working for a social good (it sounds like that's something you want to do anyway). Ben Horowitz says you shouldn't follow your passion: http://a16z.com/2015/05/28/some-career-advice-for-all-you-recent-graduates/ http://a16z.com/2015/05/28/some-career-advice-for-all-you-re... I think this is great advice with a strong basis in reality. You said you wanted to make an impact and fix things socially? You will do more for that by doing whatever it is you're best at, and using the influence and wealth that earns you to affect positive change socially. Maybe you won't work on it directly, but indirectly your impact will be far greater if you do whatever it is you're best at, whatever that may be. Personally, I choose to live a frugal life and accumulate wealth. It's going to compound interest over the course of my life, and when I'm gone it's all going to causes that I care about. That's because I could donate $1 today, or I could keep it invested and donate $5 when I die. I may never actually work on social issues directly, I may not be here to witness my earnings going to important causes, but this is how I'll have the largest impact that I possibly can in terms of doing a social good. Not by doing what I'm passionate about, but instead by doing what I'm good at. Identify what you want to do with your life, then figure out how you're going to accomplish that by doing what you're best at. Your life can have almost any kind of impact on this world that you want. It's not limited to the scope of your profession, and the size of your impact is limited only by how hard you're willing to work.

apineda 10y ago

I'm just getting through "How I found freedom in an unfree world", It's amazing and touches on a lot of themes of this post, Please read it. :)