This month New York Times best-selling author Donald Miller, released a post entitled “Why Most Twenty Somethings are Delusional” on his blog, Storyline. His main point resting that we are a generation brimming over with passion, but lacking the work ethic to support our whims.
I can scarcely sit on campus 20 minutes without hearing a peer earnestly discussing a new-found plan to drop out of school and travel the world (I’ve heard this is possible if you have a hot air balloon and 180 days) or become the next over-night folk sensation. Believe it or not, success takes slightly more talent and ambition than the capability to chant “ho, hey” in sequential rhythm. I am certainly not condemning following your dreams. I am a dreamer, of the daydreaming persuasion, and according to John Lennon, I am not the only one.
Just the other afternoon I found myself day-dreaming of foregoing my journalism degree to drop out and open a used bookstore. I imagined loyal patrons arriving at my shop to sit and discuss the creative genius of Fitzgerald and the beautiful words of William Blake, while sipping on the world’s greatest cappuccino (you obviously can’t have a used book store without the quintessential coffee shop attached to provide the freshly-ground-beans aroma). Meg Ryan managed in “You’ve Got Mail,” so obviously it is a completely feasible life plan for me as well, right?
Feasible? Yes. If I actually had a business plan. Which I do not. I have no backers, no space and no business experience. It’s more likely that I try my hand at successfully running an amateur library out of the bookcase in my apartment.
Miller states in many ways the 20-something generation is better than his own, the generation behind.
“They are more altruistic, more international, more objective and less fearful than any generation in recent history,” Miller said of our generation, I believe he is right. Our passion, if utilized in the correct way, can provide a world of benefits if we are responsible and realize that passion is our drive, not to be mistaken for a solid plan. Creativity must be paired with hard work in order to yield plausible results. Edison didn’t wake up one morning and put wire in a glass pear and say “let there be light.” He utilized his passion to give him the determination to create hundreds of trials and errors.
If there is a single reason I believe the Millennial Generation will change the world, it is our passion and our ability to believe in our creative dreams. Everyday our world becomes more interconnected socially and increasingly less ethnocentric. We have the extraordinary opportunity created by all the technological advances of the generation before us at our fingertips, but unless we utilize our passion to give us the stamina to work hard and succeed, we will merely be a generation remembered solely for our ideas and nothing more.
Miller characterizes this generation as believing they are special, they earning the work of their parents generation and esteeming passion over work.
“You did not make the iPhone. When the iPhone was being dreamed up, you were in kindergarten. You use the iPhone. And when you post a picture of your vacation, it doesn’t make you a genius, it makes Steve Jobs a genius,” Miller said. “Steve Jobs is dead. And he died when he was your parents’ age. You’re alive. He can’t create something new, but you can. The ball is in your court.”
Peers, I urge you to go and live out your dreams. Use the altruism associated with our generation to change the world, yet do so with an air of reality intertwined with your lofty ambitions. Honor the ideas and hard work of the generations before you, and use your vigor to leave a legacy for the generations to follow.