I keep seeing posts about how ‘millennials’ aren’t self-isolating – how they’re going on spring break and visiting beaches…taking vacations. Our older friends keep sending and posting things of 25-35 YOs campaigning for self-isolation.
I’m growing extremely tired of the rhetoric and the blame game, so here’s my take on the situation as an older millennial.
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We’re f*cked.
Who are these mythical ‘spring breakers’ traipsing around Florida’s beaches sans fear of COVID-19? (Not that any of us have the capital do that anyway, but that’s a different soapbox.)
As a member of this age group my friends and I, as well as literally everyone we know has gracefully transitioned into self-quarantine and has embraced social distancing. We have our makeshift home offices and are helping older colleagues setup video chats, are offering digital co-working solutions and are troubleshooting technology for our companies. We’re here, from a distance, rising to the occasion, keeping our cool and focusing on solutions.
Yet, here we are getting blamed for another subset of circumstances we have nothing to do with.
I have seen countless reports on the news about people refusing to self-quarantine – none of them are Millennials. None of them are Gen-Z. Every single cop that has to be posted by someone’s front door has been over 30. Just sayin’.
But that’s not the point.
Age isn’t the point.
Generation gaps aren’t the point.
How we got here isn’t the point. We’re here regardless of why.
It’s all a big fat distraction from the bigger problem that we, as a global human collective are facing: Economic collapse.
We the Millennials, (Gen-Z, and Gen-X, we got you fam) and literally every other human (whether you realize it or not) are all out here trying to figure out what to do- a lot of us have lost our jobs (of which our healthcare is tied to)...Society as we knew it changed overnight and we are crumbling under the weight losing the lives we’ve worked so hard to build through student debt, economic collapse, destruction of our planet’s ecosystems, dissolution of the American political system….just to name a few.
We are not going on spring f*cking break.
We’re trying to SURVIVE.
We’re in shock. We’re terrified. We’re confused. We’re frantically trying to sift through our emotions, and options to figure out what the next steps are so we don’t end up on the streets.
This is the reality for “millennials” and “gen z” and most humans in the modern world right now.
Economic collapse doesn’t give a single shit about what generation you’re in. It doesn’t care what your industry was. It doesn’t care if you’re healthy, or sick. It doesn’t care if you have a 401K. It just doesn’t care.
You know who cares?
Your fellow human beings care.
Do literally everyone a favor and STOP giving attention to fluff that divides us. Pointing fingers and playing the blame game detracts from the REAL ACTUAL problems and causes everyone (regardless of age) to incur more of a stress load on their already taxed adrenal systems, thereby weakening immune systems and contributing to the dissemination of propaganda/false information.
Blame solves utterly nothing.
We’re not going on spring break – we’re f*ucking scared for our lives because the world as we know it has been obliterated. It will not bounce back in a few months. It has forever been changed. And I for one, refuse to put my faith in a system of government that has systematically told me my value as a human being is my productivity and that life is a commodity to be bought and sold.
Pause, feel, think then start working with your friends and neighbors to come up with solutions. Ask yourself what you can do to help. It doesn’t have to be big – I’m making chill jazz music with a few collaborators – everything, big and small helps shift perspectives from ‘me’ to ‘we’.
Without collaboration, community, and a global redefinition of what it means to be human, we will not come out of this gracefully.
We are in trouble. Start acting like it.
