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I feel like you missed malvosenior's point. Its not about never failing, it's about not having the opportunity to fail in safe spaces before they entered the re

I feel like you missed malvosenior's point. Its not about never failing, it's about not having the opportunity to fail in safe spaces before they entered the real world. And by safe spaces I don't mean what is going on at today's universities. Growing up I remember finding it weird that every kid won a trophy --- just for showing up to the swim meet. I also remember how it seemed to wash the meaning of my second place trophy away. I was lucky enough to experience failure often at a young age but I had many and by many I mean almost all of my friends never seamed to have hardships or experience failure. And I remember very very vividly when my best friend at the time was rejected and failed for the first time in his life by getting denied to the school of his choice. He was devastated. And not in a normal way. But that only lasted shortly as his mother was able to pull some strings and some connections and got him in the backdoor -- failure adverted. Had many friend like that, and the majority of the kids who biggest disappointments as a child were stupid things like their favorite pizza store closed down, or it rained on their birthday. In any case I think and malvosenior can correct me if I am wrong. That the point is that we have a generation of kids now adults that have not been giving the tools to properly deal with failure -- and this affects there life in a very adverse way. That all being said please read the above with the notion that I don't really like to judge groups of people, and that individuals should be looked at as just that -- an in individual. But what I am saying is that if I were to make a classification that did fit this "never learned how to fail" notion I am sure I could find more than a hand full of people who I would classify with said trait. Now clearly aallevich is talking of his/her experiences and they are most certainly valid. But what I think would be more healthy is to unyoke your life experiences from that of a "Millennial" and own it for who you are and how you became to be. From there you can then actually start to address the issues that you feel are holding you back and likely come out on top. As long as you look at it as a "us" problem it will always be too big of an issue for you to overcome by your self. Don't let a calcification dictate who you are.

aalleavitch 9y ago
You realize that your perception of what your friends went through is driven by your own personal situation, and not that of millennials at-large, right? Your friends, I assume, were rich kids, or at least comfortably middle-class. The problems my friends dealt with in high school weren't trivial. They dealt with divorce, drug addiction, alcoholic parents, unwanted pregnancies, struggles with poverty, bullying... To me the notion that they never had to learn how to deal with failure is ridiculous. The class gap is enormous, and I've lived a life where I've been intimately acquainted with both sides of it. Besides, it's not me I'm worried about here. I'm worried about the people around me. I'm one of the lucky millennials who has a tech job. It's my friends who are struggling to eat.
- mbrumlow 9y ago
  First off by no means rich for the friends, and for me I was on food stamps and living in s single parent family with 2 children and a mother making less than 16k a year. The problem is that the things you speak you do so as if they are not extraordinary -- these are things that all walks of people have to deal with, rich or poor (minus the poverty one). These also are not personal failures, and are not the type of failures I am talking about. And no, the perception of my friends situation has nothing to do with my personal situation. These are reflections I had long after the situation and emotion removed from the conversation. If you are fine -- that is awesome -- then please pass on to your friends to let their group identity keep them down. There are many jobs -- maybe not the one they want to do, or thought they wanted to do -- that today with 2 years of cheap training can bring in some real cash. I will take my brother as a example. He dealt with EVERY ONE OF THE THINGS on your list, every last one! And today he is successful at what he does, but man does he have to work hard- much harder than I do (I am in tech as well). He took classes to be come a AC repair man, and now runs his own company. Did he make shit money at first? For sure, everybody does, but as he gained skill and saved money he was able to finally go out on his own and now has 6 people working for him. Not once did he say "I can't because ... I was bullied, I can't because ... I grew up on food stamps, I can't because ... my father was a abusive alcoholic, and I can't ... because my parents divorced (twice)", I can't because just are not words in his vocabulary. And you sort of prove my point about some thing when you bring up that THOSE experiences, the things that many many many successful people experience are the things you sight as keeping your friends down today. While horrible life experiences are some times out of our control, how you deal with them and what you do next is.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    I think there's a mismatch in what we're each trying to convey here. I understand very well how people can struggle through incredible odds and still manage to make success for themselves. I think such stories are deeply inspiring, and I likewise hold to a philosophy of never giving in despite the uphill climb you face. But I'm not concerned with personal motivation here, I'm concerned with systemic issues that need to be addressed, and that I believe can be addressed. Personal motivation is a non-sequitur. The idea that if people in a disadvantaged group were just motivated enough they have an equal chance to succeed is trivially false: the entire reason they're considered part of a disadvantaged group is because their chance of good outcomes is statistically lower than other groups. Demotivating factors certainly play a part in this, but the idea that their disadvantage would disappear if they just thought about things the right way is silly in the extreme (not to mention unsupported by data). You usually don't have to dig far to find an actual obstruction to the success of the group. And if we have the capability of removing this obstruction, why wouldn't we?

aalleavitch 9y ago

You realize that your perception of what your friends went through is driven by your own personal situation, and not that of millennials at-large, right? Your friends, I assume, were rich kids, or at least comfortably middle-class. The problems my friends dealt with in high school weren't trivial. They dealt with divorce, drug addiction, alcoholic parents, unwanted pregnancies, struggles with poverty, bullying... To me the notion that they never had to learn how to deal with failure is ridiculous. The class gap is enormous, and I've lived a life where I've been intimately acquainted with both sides of it. Besides, it's not me I'm worried about here. I'm worried about the people around me. I'm one of the lucky millennials who has a tech job. It's my friends who are struggling to eat.

mbrumlow 9y ago
First off by no means rich for the friends, and for me I was on food stamps and living in s single parent family with 2 children and a mother making less than 16k a year. The problem is that the things you speak you do so as if they are not extraordinary -- these are things that all walks of people have to deal with, rich or poor (minus the poverty one). These also are not personal failures, and are not the type of failures I am talking about. And no, the perception of my friends situation has nothing to do with my personal situation. These are reflections I had long after the situation and emotion removed from the conversation. If you are fine -- that is awesome -- then please pass on to your friends to let their group identity keep them down. There are many jobs -- maybe not the one they want to do, or thought they wanted to do -- that today with 2 years of cheap training can bring in some real cash. I will take my brother as a example. He dealt with EVERY ONE OF THE THINGS on your list, every last one! And today he is successful at what he does, but man does he have to work hard- much harder than I do (I am in tech as well). He took classes to be come a AC repair man, and now runs his own company. Did he make shit money at first? For sure, everybody does, but as he gained skill and saved money he was able to finally go out on his own and now has 6 people working for him. Not once did he say "I can't because ... I was bullied, I can't because ... I grew up on food stamps, I can't because ... my father was a abusive alcoholic, and I can't ... because my parents divorced (twice)", I can't because just are not words in his vocabulary. And you sort of prove my point about some thing when you bring up that THOSE experiences, the things that many many many successful people experience are the things you sight as keeping your friends down today. While horrible life experiences are some times out of our control, how you deal with them and what you do next is.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  I think there's a mismatch in what we're each trying to convey here. I understand very well how people can struggle through incredible odds and still manage to make success for themselves. I think such stories are deeply inspiring, and I likewise hold to a philosophy of never giving in despite the uphill climb you face. But I'm not concerned with personal motivation here, I'm concerned with systemic issues that need to be addressed, and that I believe can be addressed. Personal motivation is a non-sequitur. The idea that if people in a disadvantaged group were just motivated enough they have an equal chance to succeed is trivially false: the entire reason they're considered part of a disadvantaged group is because their chance of good outcomes is statistically lower than other groups. Demotivating factors certainly play a part in this, but the idea that their disadvantage would disappear if they just thought about things the right way is silly in the extreme (not to mention unsupported by data). You usually don't have to dig far to find an actual obstruction to the success of the group. And if we have the capability of removing this obstruction, why wouldn't we?