Are Millenials Foolish for Striving to Find Meaningful Work?

Happiness = Expectations — Reality

“Stay hungry, stay foolish”, Steve Jobs famously announced in his legendary commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. I ate every word he said. Hell, I didn’t eat it, I inhaled it. Something in me still lights up when I rewatch that speech. It speaks to a worldview that I so badly want to be true. One that I know so many hopeful and like-minded souls in my generation want to be true: That we all came here to this world for a specific reason, that is to do meaningful work. That each one of us has the potential to find the one thing that we love doing. The one thing that will bring us great success while also making the world a better place.

But, if we look around at all those “staying hungry” more than a decade later, the situation is a bit more grim: In 2020, Business Insider announced that millennials were the most depressed generation, arguing that jobs play a disproportionate role in our mental health. We’re burned out and unhappy, and while many of us are in therapy, we’re not getting much better. We’re drowning in student-loan debt from fancy degrees that perhaps didn’t get us the career we wanted, or maybe they did, but we soon realized that we wanted to do something completely different. We work long hours, don’t take enough time off, and compare our work-in-progress lives with the highlight reels of others on social media. We’re tired. We’ve officially become the “Burnout Generation”.

It’s “the hungriest” amongst us, those who spin the wheels most aggressively, who are often widely cherished. Those of us that also expose our nervous systems to the most stress: Founding start-ups, attempting solopreneurship, climbing corporate career ladders, dedicating lives to honorable but demanding healthcare professions. Aspirations that leave little time for rest, play, and contentment.

We’re definitely hungry. We’re probably foolish. But are we really happier?

Millennials Have Ingrained The Belief System That Work Should Be Both All-Consuming And Fulfilling

Career dynamics have changed over the past few decades. While our parents diligently worked jobs to make a living for the family, often spending entire careers in the same field or even at the same company, millennials have different aspirations: Yes, we want to make a living, but we also want to be fulfilled while doing it. This is a more challenging endeavor, and we’ve become serial job-hoppers in the quest to achieve it.

What does it mean to be fulfilled in our careers? It means our job gives us meaning and purpose, we’re doing something that we’re not only good at, but that also pays well and that makes the world a better place.

That’s the goal at least. But that’s not usually where we’ll start.

Out of college, our first priority is often to find a job that pays well (enough), a non-negotiable especially for those with student loan debt (aka everyone in America). We don’t get to be picky. We work for money for a few years, until we’re overworked or simply bored, we fall into a quarter-life crisis and begin to question the meaning of our lives. The existential dread sets in.

“Is this really what I came to planet earth to do?”

No, it’s not, because “I’ll eventually find whatever I’m supposed to do that will give me great meaning. I just have to stay hungry, put myself out there, try lots of different things, and eventually, I’ll find something that’s in alignment.”

What makes us assume that this will be the case?

Because other people managed to do the exact same thing.

Because that’s what self-fulfilled idols of our generation have achieved, that’s what Oprah, Tim Ferris, Susan Cain, Joe Rogan, Liz Gilbert, Gabby Bernstein, Jay Shetty, and so many more have done.

On social media, we’re bombarded with “get-rich-quick” schemes, whether it’s someone telling us to start dropshipping, become a real estate investor, or start our own purpose-driven small business. It’s only been a few months that I’ve joined TikTok, but the algorithm quickly identified my ambitions to ditch the 9-to-5 life. I now get the full range from freelancers living Vanlife, to those urging me to start investing in Airbnbs, to those telling me “I moved to Bali to become a digital nomad and you can too!”.

And then, of course, there are the gazillion coaches trying to sell me a course on whatever I’m trying to do. Oh, the coaches. They trigger me. Does no one ever realize that the only way coaches make money is by selling others the idea that they can make money doing what they did? Which is rarely the actual thing (which may or may not make them money), but more commonly selling courses about how to do it? If I see another Medium article about how someone made $$$ in 30 minutes from selling a writing course I may lose it. Nobody cares how much money you make selling a course! How much money do you make writing? And how happy are you while doing it?

Unpopular Opinion: What If Work Is Not The Main Contributor To A Purposeful Life?

Let’s take a look at a millennial trying to start his third network-based app, grinding day and night to make this one a success (after the previous ones failed), clinging to the idea that “this will be it”. Is this person really living a more fulfilling life than the farmer in rural Africa who makes just enough to feed his family, doesn’t feel passionate about his job but also doesn’t hate it (because it is just a job). Instead, he gets most of his meaning from his relationships, his family, and the community, which in turn sets him up to infuse meaning into the way he farms. Who’s better off?

All too often, we become so lonely in our pursuit for greatness that we forget that, as Brianna Wiest puts it, “we do not need to be exceptionally beautiful or talented or successful to experience the things that make life profound, like knowledge, connection, and community”.

When I look at a postman who’s been delivering mail his entire life and does so with a huge smile on his face because he’s content to have a job that pays the bills and allows him to interact with humans, which brings him great joy, I have to wonder: have we gotten it all wrong? Have millennials confused inspiration with entitlement?

Attaching to outcomes vs. living in the present

When we cling to the outcomes of our deepest ambitions, we have to ask ourselves: is our attachment to fulfillment and success a mirror for our own insecurity? Are we working towards our goals for the sake of external validation, or because we believe that they will make us happy?

As many people who achieve their wildest dreams will tell you: finding “the thing” or reaching the “one big goal” is not what will make you happy. Look at all the Hollywood stars ending up in rehab. Happiness is derived from your internal state of being, not from external achievements. Buddhists have known this for thousands of years.

So, if we don’t need “to get somewhere” or “find something” to be happy, how can we make ourselves happy now, rather than outsourcing it to some career fantasies that may or may not become a reality?

How we do one thing is how we do everything

What if it’s not so much about what exactly we do, but instead how we do it. If we believe that to be true, then it doesn’t matter so much what we’ll end up doing. Reframing the ubiquitous question from “what should I do with my life” to “how can I get the most meaning from what I do” allows us to pivot our energy to the present moment. It’s a different challenge, but arguably a much more attainable one. I don’t need to tell you that we’ll be happier when we’re more present, Eckart Tolle has been telling us loud and clear that the power lies in the now.

The meaning of life is to give life meaning — Viktor Frankl

There are those people who’ve accepted that jobs are just jobs and worked their way to cultivate contentment. The farmer, the postman, probably most of our parents. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are those that absolutely burn for what they’re doing.

What can we learn from people who operate from a place of deep service? Those who do what they do because they strongly feel called to contribute, regardless of their ability to make a living from it (or even find success)?

Take for example best-selling “Eat Pray Love” author Liz Gilbert: She wasn’t working her ass off trying to make money from writing. No, for most of her life, she worked regular jobs like waitressing, anything that would allow her to spend as much time as possible doing what she loved: writing. She became famous, but even if she hadn’t, I bet you she’d still be writing and waitressing without complaining about it. Because she wasn’t working towards “making it as a writer”, she was working towards being a writer, which she achieved, because that’s what she was always doing.

I’m About To Transition Out Of My Career, And I’m Unsure What To Aspire To Next

So far, I’ve had an incredibly linear career. I simply followed a path that many before me had neatly carved out, a path that required me to take little risk: I studied business, became a management consultant, then got my MBA. I’ve had the corporate life, the fancy business travel, the expensed meals, and on the flip side, way too many stressful days and long nights. There’s one thing I now know for sure: This is not for me.

My priorities have shifted over the years, mainly as I’ve worked intensively on my mental health to heal underlying issues of my workaholism (and my depression, and my eating disorder — which, as you may guess, all have common root causes). I began rewriting the narrative about my life that I believed for so long to be true: That I needed to be successful, exceptional even, in order to be worthy and live a fulfilling life.

Resist the temptation to rely on achieving greatness

While I no longer believe that what I choose to do will determine how happy it will make me, but rather how I choose to pursue it, I still fall into old patterns from time to time: The belief that I need to find greatness in whatever I do. That I need to “make it” and be exceptionally successful. If we cling to believing that, we run into two problems:

1. We’re still trapped in the belief that we’re not great as we already are, or able to be happy, and instead, rely on achievements to validate our greatness, or bring us happiness.
2. We set ourselves up for disappointment because, let’s face it, most of us will not find exceptional success. The probability that we’ll join the ranks of those that inspire us is simply not that high (more on that shortly).

There’s certainly a part of me that wants to throw herself into the next thing, set myself a big goal, and start working towards it. That’s after all the kind of person I am, I’m committed and driven. But there’s also a part of me that wonders whether it’ll be more rewarding to simply find a job that earns me money while being the least painful given my personal preferences and abilities. One that will allow me to simply live my life, follow my curiosities, and dedicate myself to my communities and passion projects in my free time. Projects or activities that I don’t intend to be “side hustles” which will eventually bring financial independence, but instead, things that I pursue exclusively for the sake of pursuing them. Passion without expectations.

Pivot your focus to find meaning in all parts of life, not just work

The two models above are quite contradictory: In one, I work for the outcome, in the other, I detach fulfillment from work-related outcomes and instead focus my energies on making life outside work as fulfilling as possible.

I’ve observed these polarities moving from New York to LA: In New York, I was mostly surrounded by people who were chasing big goals, and now in LA, I’m exposed to way more people who work to live, not live to work. People who have a job they may or may not enjoy, but they’re also done at 4 pm or start late to go surfing in the morning. I assume you won’t be surprised to hear which group appears to be happier.

I’m unsure whether I’m just a little burned out, or whether this is my new state of being (only time will tell), but when I look around at everyone hustling I just want to scream: STOP! You’re missing the point!

“It was a musical thing — we were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.” — Alan Watts

With remote work and the pandemic many of us have realized that, in fact, work is just work. Not only has it reminded us of things that are much more important than work, such as our health. It also brought other parts of our lives into the spotlight, as commutes fell away and we suddenly found ourselves with more time on our hands. What do I do with two extra hours every day? How do I actually like spending my time, outside the daily grind of “waking up, working out, going to work, cooking dinner, watching TV”?

Challenge the illusion of “finding your one thing”

For the past year or so, I’ve probably thought about what I want to do with my life almost every day. It’s paralyzing, and if you’re still reading this article, I’m sure you can relate. I started writing, I thought I’d become a wellness coach after studying holistic health and nutrition, I focused projects in my day job to climate action & sustainability (a topic I care deeply about), I periodically brainstorm start-up ideas, and I closely monitor emerging opportunities in the psychedelic space. The options are plentiful, I’m trying on many hats, and yet I still have to encounter the feeling that I’ve found “it”.

The key question remains, what will be “it”?

Is it really that simple? That when we know, we know? Ex-lawyer Susan Cain said that the moment she walked into her first writing course at NYU, she knew that was exactly where she was meant to be. I recently talked to a therapist friend who went back to school at age 39 after a career in film, and she echoed the same sentiment: “as soon as I stepped back into the classroom, I knew this was it”.

But what if not all of us will find the one thing that makes sense and feels good in our bodies and souls? What if not all of us will feel this clarity, perhaps because we’re wrapped up in the “what ifs” of alternatives, constantly evaluating and comparing? Or perhaps simply because there’s not just one thing, but many different things that could fulfill us?

It’s Time We Manage Our Expectations And Ask Ourselves Better Questions

When we’re struggling to find answers to our questions, it’s worth evaluating whether we’re asking ourselves the right questions.

One proposed shift: rather than ask yourself “how can I find success?”, ask yourself, “what does success look like to me?”.

Perhaps it’s time to reprioritize. We didn’t come to this earth and evolve only to be as thin and rich as possible. Although, if you scan Mediums library, you may think otherwise: every other article is about how much money someone made, or how much weight someone lost (but maybe that’s just my algorithm, HA).

Well, what did we come for? That’s a question we each have to answer for ourselves. Maybe I had too many psychedelic journeys, but personally, I believe we came here to enjoy the full beauty of what it means to be human: to love, to connect, to feel, to learn, to grow. Perhaps, yes, also to self-actualize. But it’s time we redefine self-actualization and broaden our understanding. It cannot only be reserved for those who manage to make a fortune, or even just a living, doing something they absolutely love while being of service to the greater good. I’d argue that the African farmer who barely makes ends meet but has a loving family and community in which he has a clear role is just as self-actualized as the best-selling author or unicorn entrepreneur.

Happiness = expectations — reality

We also have to ask ourselves whether we’re looking for something that doesn’t exist, or maybe not for everyone at least.

The problem with success stories of those shouting from the rooftops that “you can do it too, you can make your passion your living” is that it’s not an accurate representation of reality. It’s inspirational, it’s often not realistic. We only see those who have made it work, we’re rarely exposed to the stories of all those who tried but failed.

Something we can do to influence our levels of happiness is to manage our expectations and ask ourselves better questions:

• What does a fulfilled life look like to me? What do I truly need to feel content? Not only in my work, but in my relationships, in my community?
• How can I infuse these things into the life I’m living now? The work I’m doing now? The communities and relationships I’m a part of now?
• How much is enough? Enough love, enough money, enough growth?
• How can I do the things I do in a way that gives them meaning?

Once we know what and how much we truly need, we can shift our focus to cultivating presence in our life (and in our work). Perhaps we’ll find success along the way too, but if not, it won’t matter. Because we’ve already found contentment in what we have. And while that’s not at all an easier feat than finding fulfillment, it may be a more rewarding one.

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