Werk It

We're either trying to get laid or trying to get paid. Story of our lives…

A bizarre idea popped into my head last night while I was in bed listening to Ja Rule with a steady draft of cold air blowing over my face. Seeing how my Tinder endeavours have compromised my prospects of ever running for political office, I'm in search of a Plan B. I pondered my job qualifications – adequate at mono tasking, knows how to open Photoshop application on a MacBook Pro, motivated by fear, unconventionally bold and beautiful. “What if I really applied myself…” I thought, “nahh.” But I remain open to your suggestions.

My career path only extends as far as half an arm’s length to date; yet it has already deviated from those of my parents. Theirs was a generation raised to believe practical and secure employment was born out of years of hard work, which – lucky for them – more than paid off when they graduated from being insufferable hippies and fell into the sweet embrace of unprecedented economic prosperity.

Although they managed to milk the most out of Keynesian economics and may now be looking forward to spending their retirement luxuriating in the pension system’s last hurrah, most of them did a horrendous job of juggling work and life. Drawing back to the point about opportunity cost, everything comes at a price.

Young people today are acutely aware that it’s nearly impossible to have it all, unless you’re one of those rare breed of Type A lunatics who actually does. (Eg: Maz) This has consequently led to a paradigm shift in our values and a review of the definition of success. Just FYI: Recently added to the venerable Oxford English Dictionary in their March 2014 update, were the words cunted, cunting, cuntish and cunty.

Time and attention have overtaken money and status as our most precious resource. And there's a growing emphasis on fulfilment, self-expression and social responsibility. We want integrated and holistic lives where we don’t have to behave like corporate psychopaths in one context, and benevolent, conscientious countrymen in the other. It’s through an intricate and highly individual dance of enlightenment, otherwise known as the Harlem Shake, that we are able to discover what our strengths are and use them to belong to and in the service of something bigger than us.

Even though it makes little financial sense, a significant number of us are inclined to work unpaid internships (looking at you, Lucas Leclere, for providing free labour to Chanel for an entire year), do volunteer work, and start ventures we believe in rather than settle into “safe” corporate jobs. And get this – the most talented of us aren’t going to climb the ladders of others. No siree!

It’s no longer kosher to spend decades – let alone years – paying our dues before a middle manager allows us to indulge in a slice of pie filled with slightly interesting projects. Pity. I was really looking forward to pouring 60-80 hours each week doing uninspiring work that lacks meaning. Maybe in another life. The end is mighty nigh for top-down management, as we twist the arms of corporations to amend their rigid traditions and adapt. Or else we simply up and leave for greener pastures.

We live for the moment; it’s easier to relate to Mr. Right Now than Mr. Right. #Pitbull. Our world has proven that everything is transient, nothing is a guarantee – from nationwide layoffs to war to soaring divorce rates to watching our parents’ net worth get wiped out when the housing bubble burst to the precipitous fall of Bill Cosby to the supermarket produce guy constantly moving the nectarines – please stop, life is hard enough. There’s not a lot we can count on. Life is uncertain. We aren't particularly motivated by promotion plans for five years from now. Especially after we've Heard ‘Em Say, “nothing ever promised tomorrow today.” (And nothing lasts forever but be honest babe, it hurts but it may be the only way.)

We’re said to have "poor work ethics." Haters gonna have a semi-valid point sometimes. We definitely have a self-centered approach to our work, but it’s not necessarily the bane that it may initially appear to be. We are dedicated to accomplishing our tasks well, and we’re innovative in figuring out the most efficient ways to go about it. Unfortunately, we haven’t been raised in a manner that demands us to look around and see what should be done next. So we just do what we have to do. And we do it well. Then consider ourselves done.

Are we not just filling the days between the weekends, anyway?

Daddy Issues

Sometimes my father takes me out for food and we talk about my life – or rather, lack of.

Every three months or so, my father takes me out for dinner, just the two of us. Even though we pretty much sit down at the same table every other night of the week to eat with the rest of our family, these dinners hold a special meaning for the both of us. “Dinner date with my dearest baby! Together we would have clocked only 82 years on this blessed earth!! No prizes for guessing who contributed to most of that number… But can’t help but feel younger tonight (grinning face with smiling eyes emoji)!!” was a Facebook status he posted after one such tête-à-tête meal.

He’d make a reservation for half past seven at our usual spot, where the waitstaff warmly greet him by name, the menu is consistently fresh and good, and his daughter is never mistaken for his mistress. The evening kicks off with a round of passion fruit martinis as he'd imitate someone intently contemplating between appetizers. When our waiter comes around again, he’d place orders for the same three starters that we always share – raw oysters, crab croquettes, and a Niçoise salad.

Once the last of the oysters is slurped down, it’d be time to address the elephant in the room. He’d wave our waiter for a second glass of martini before launching right in to ask me about my plans for life. The first few times, I failed to pick up on his gestures for another drink as one’s cue to get those ducks in a row. Taken by surprise, I’d responded with a shrug and glazed eyes. And of course the infamous phrase cherished by teenagers all over the globe, “I dunno.” Usually this would be cute. But seeing that I’m no longer a teenager, my father remained utterly unimpressed for the most part.

But these days, I don’t need to be prompted. With a mouth full of crabmeat and a drip of tartar sauce on my chin, I gush to my father between bites, about what my next step in my career is going to be (big shot yoga pants designer), that I’m saving up to buy a house (but handbags and shoes first), that I see myself settling down and starting a family at 26 (current companionless situation is not ideal, but I’m choosing to stay optimistic.) This amuses him, to say the least.

As if mimicking the world we live in, my ambitious plans seem to be ever-changing. Having seen me through just about my entire life, my father describes me as his “erratic, wayward and unpredictable child.” In his eyes and in his words, I’m “a unicorn that cannot be trained.” He knows all too well that the next time we chat, I would’ve probably decided to become a nutritionist instead and be seriously flirting with the idea of celibacy. He has begrudgingly accepted that my ‘life plan’, as he so sweetly calls it, really only goes as far as the day after tomorrow.

Reckless, impulsive, irresponsible, and immature? Yaaassss. But I take comfort in knowing that I’m not completely alone. If there’s one scenario that’s become endemic amongst a sizeable group of 25 to 40-year-olds today, it’s our collective decision to turn our backs on the milestones of adulthood to exist in a state of prolonged adolescence instead, where we can avoid the ball and chain of responsibility – marriage, mortgage, children, career – for as long as possible.

If by the end of the night I appeared to be on the verge of tears, my father would order us ice cream. If I didn’t, he’d order a cheese platter. Whichever was served, I ate my heart out anyway over the grimness of my future.

We Got Dis

I wrote this as a kind of affirmation for myself that I have at least 5 things going for me at the moment and to convince myself that all the resources I need to advance in the game of life over the next few years, I already have.

“Things in my life that could change my life”

Passion

“Follow your heart”; “find a fulfilling career” and “do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day” are relatively new ideas that have only really gotten going in the last couple of decades. Having economic prosperity by way of a satisfying career had never held any importance to preceding generations, but still, these catchy slogans and delusional expectations of the future have somehow found their way into the fabric of our (young people’s) lives today and constantly pop up in the millennial manifesto.

As a person born in the early ‘90s, my subscription to these beliefs during my childhood happened by default. On top of that, having been subjected to brainwashing throughout adolescence, I find myself studying my reflection in the mirror at age 21 years and 5 months old, thinking that I am special and believing that I am an outlier. Completely oblivious to the fact that everyone else had been exposed to those same sacred messages from the media, I admit a sense of higher purpose, a desire to remake the world, to create my own laws, and live by my own principles.

But what exactly happens when these concepts are applied outside of a chick flick?

Figuring out what you enjoy doing and then finding a way to get paid doing it is tricky business. Many people – myself included – sit around convinced that if only they could turn their yoga hobby into a fulltime job, they’d finally be happy. When in reality, doing an activity all day long and depending on it for survival could suck the playfulness and enjoyment out of it.

I don’t want to sound like a brat, though that may be unavoidable. Ultimately, I think that if the option to “earn a living doing what you love” is available to you without too much force or an exorbitant cost, go for it. Because you’ll be doing it for at least 8 hours a day for at least 5 days a week – considering that the economic model of retiring at 55 with a pension is gone and the likelihood of inventing something Facebook may want to buy is slim – for at least the rest of your life.

Talent

Are we born or are we made? Things like piano, ballet and Math may come much more naturally to some as compared to others, but it’s a common misconception that talent is innate and comes solely from within the individual. This observation only explains the variance in talents. For a large part, talent needs to be nurtured over time and can be influenced by a myriad of external factors ranging from societal, cultural and economic, to name a few.

So take comfort in knowing that if you’re not completely retarded at it, it’s only matter of X hours before you become an expert at it. *X = 10,000 hours of practice – number of hours you’ve put in to date (Malcolm Gladwell)

Education

With tuition fees getting more painful to afford, a growing number of people with degrees they don’t need for their job, even more people taking up positions unrelated to their major, and the evolving landscape of our global economy, the necessity of a degree to be successful today is questionable. To be totally clear, a degree from a distinguished university is always good to have under your belt. Skipping university (or dropping out) may have worked out for Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

Some industries require a bachelor’s at minimum, period.

If I’m looking to get my car fixed, I’m just as inclined to get in touch with the guy who’s been working on cars his entire life with his dad as I am with the guy who paid for an education. If I’m looking to get my body worked on, whoa… Hold up, that’s a whole new ballgame.

• If you’re interested in becoming a lawyer, a job in the STEM field or any other academically-focused trade, the no-degree route isn’t for you. Sorry.
• Many creative jobs will look for a level of training, but if you can produce something cool, somebody will be impressed and want to hire you. And if you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, somebody will also hire you.
• Blue-collar work is another sector where formal education is often forgone in favor of on-the-job training or apprenticeship programs. If your life’s goal is to be the best electrician you can be, chances are that taking out loans and pledging 4 (or more) years of your life to university won’t be necessary. Learning is our responsibility and teaching ourselves in the Information Age couldn’t be any easier.

The question is not whether or not we need a bachelor’s degree. It’s whether the job we want requires it, because not everyone is running the same rat race. Some careers do. Some will just be more convenient to pursue with a degree. Others simply don’t care what our papers say as long as we can get shit done.

At the end of the day, higher education is only a means to an end, because the proving grounds are in the real world. We don’t leave a mark in the world as a passive student.

Confidence

Post-WWII, society had developed protocols, procedures and processes for everything. I won’t go into great detail because world history was never my best subject at school, but basically everything was crap and then some guys dropped a couple of bombs in Japan and almost all the Jews got killed by another dude with only one testicle and then everyone decided to get really, really organized with their stuff.

Majority of us have grown so acclimatized to how aspects of our lives have been classified into tables, plotted onto charts and fitted into tidy lines, that we don’t always realize that what we’ve essentially done with all the red tape is to put ourselves into boxes. In time, we find ourselves running up against the invisible walls of such boxes constructed by our particular preconceptions of “how things should work”.

We are accused of being lazy, selfish, entitled and rude. Older generations scold our lack of initiative and our apparent expectation of being shown through, but the wall is very real to us. Fortunately for us, these walls can easily be broken with some boldness and a change in perception – it’s all right to step outside the box. Especially when we have the skills, the passion and the connections to empower changes, challenge established traditions and update the rules accordingly.

Most of us will dedicate our early twenties to finding the place we will fill in this world. It’s a riddle of life containing a limiting presupposition, which suggests that we will eventually grow to fill a spot already provided and predefined, which is a formidable thought for a twenty-something such as myself. Taboo, motherfucker!

We’re fired with passion, but the odds in society are against us – incentives misaligned, consequences neglected, methodologies adopted with little consideration. This may come off a little strong, but it almost seems as if we’re coming of age into a world that doesn’t have a place for us, that can’t fully utilize us, that expects us to wait idly on the sidelines and be thankful for placeholders like internships.

The first step towards overcoming these issues is having the knowledge that life is not a mere multiple-choice test. The second step is having the confidence and perseverance not just to change the options handed to us, but also create new opportunities for ourselves even if it leads us off the well-worn path. The third step is to do as Beckett suggests and “try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Luck

I don’t want to say too much lest I jinx myself. Also, I’ve run out of steam and feel exhausted from writing this.