I am having to learn to be ok with not getting posts out as fast as I want them. Life and work exist. Thank you for reading anyway.
For those of you that are new, this is part of a series of personal essays I try and post once a month on a specific topic. I collectively call them “On Point.” I let the topic define what I say, and what story to tell. I do my best to stay on task, though I often get a little sidetracked.
Next week, we’ll be back to the cultural talk. And I am hoping to put out something a little different here too before the end of April. See you then.
I have this friend who has never held down a job longer than a year or so. And it’s not like he is bad at his various choices of vocation. Quite the opposite. He is really good at a lot of things.
He was good at his job in sales, and in ministry, and as an academic, and in construction, and in maintenance. Maybe you know him. In fact, if you know a few millennials, then chances are you definitely do know him.
I was trying to understand it in the car, bouncing the weight of his lack of commitment off the wise processing powers of my wife. She, as always, was good for several contributions. She pointed out my own frustrations. My complaints about my job(s), my desire to write and do ministry and make money and build a business, and all that same time. She pointed out her own. She nurses and plans weddings and dreams of raising our future children unencumbered by work hours. And in showing me the ways of my own mind and her own, she have the condition a name.
Chronic unfulfillment, she called it. A disease of the mind and body, a score kept in the hours worked and the online searches of hiring sites and real estate in unseen cities.
Microsoft does not recognize “Unfulfillment” as a word, and yet, it is the thing that gives a label to the feelings of my generation. In naming it, she opened my mind to the reality. For every millennial and member of Generation Z that acts on their unfulfillment, there are many many more who harbor their frustrations under cover of duty and obligation.
A Gallup poll recently found that 21 percent of millennials have changed jobs in the last year, earning us the label of “the job-hopping generation.”
Around 30% of millennials live with a spouse and child, and less than half are married, despite the youngest members of the generation reaching the age of 27-28. Whereas Gen X has always seen family as a deep source of fulfillment, while Millennials apparently do not see things that way. We have no reason to believe that GenZers will see a sweeping change. Evidence shows that cohabitation is no longer even viewed as a step towards marriage, but as a part of the life-cycle of dating.
Millennials are moving back in with their parents at an increasing rate.
We, millennials, and GenZers by extension, seem to be running away from certain things that have typically been sources of deep and lasting fulfillment.
Make no mistake, our urge to run is not simply the urge to run from security or commitment, but also the urge to run from the things our parents and their counterparts built and did. It is not only what is within that drives us to our lack of commitment, but those things without which seem unconquerable and unachievable.
It seems obvious that the root of our struggle as a generation is a crisis of meaning. We don’t just leave jobs because we are dissatisfied, we leave marriages and cities and peoples and moral systems. The job-hopping is a symptom, as is our lack of relational commitment. Crises of meaning are almost always produced by a lack of clarity and the breakdown of once held truths.
Our world is full of paradoxes that produce this kind of meaning vacuum. Millennials and GenZers are The following are several of the paradoxes that make the conditions for chronic unfulfillment. The list is not exhaustive.
The collective vs. the individual:
The political left has championed the collective since the advent of modern politics, and this cultural contribution has led my generation to obsess over identitarian groups. And yet public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson, in conjunction with the political right, have lauded the individual as the essential unit of humanity. The collision course is set. Millennials and Gen Z have become engrossed in the discovery of where they fit in the social framework, while running aground of the need for self-actualization. Our generation has looked for individual actualization, the realization of the self, within the confines of collective identity. The disunion is unavoidable.
As a sidebar, the Church used to have a robust theology of how the individual can interact with and engage in the collective. The political divide, as it has laid claim to various denominations and divisions, has also taken hold of the theology as well.
The reality of this paradox leads to the next.
Identity-by-society vs identity-by-self:
It isn’t just that the collective and the individual are in a state of friction, but the ways in which we define our individual identities are at odds. We have been taught by the current cultural moment to filter ourselves into social sects by race, gender, political affiliation, sexual orientation. In this way, it is the society that defines the millennial/GenZer. The paradox comes when one realizes that it is up to the individual to self-select that identity, to opt-in to the social strata. This has resulted in confusion over terms, conflict over offenses given at the lack of acknowledgement over self-selection, a crisis of how to reconcile the things we see and the things we are told we should see. Debates over medical treatment and stories of people caught out in attempting work their way into the racial categories via self-identification. This can only lead to uncertainty, to the constant movement and unfulfillment of multiple generations.
Work vs. play/rest:
Another way the cultural moment creates a paradox is in the dichotomy of work versus rest, or play. One need only view the discover page of a millennial social media user to see the influx of van renovations and the advocacy for “quiet quitting,” the practice of stopping work while continuing to take a paycheck. At the same time, influencers will tell you the 9 quick steps to build a real estate empire, how to get rich by drop-shipping for Amazon, the guidance of Andrew Tate’s Hustler’s University, and all the other ways to get rich on your own merit. We have been taught to expect things from our bosses and workplaces, and to rebel at our perceived lack of value, while also being told that we can work really hard “on our own” and that any dignity we feel in work should be tied to our monetary compensation and the shortness of the time we spend developing.
Freedom vs obligation:
Millennials and GenZers want freedom from work and the influence of bosses, but they also want geographical and relational freedom. The ability to move to any place and afford housing or cost of living. The wildness of Montana ranches and mountain ranges calls, as do the tax rates of Texas and Florida. But those places can quickly become like the places we left, influenced by politics and cultural contagion, because by and large, we feel obligation to make the places we go our bastardized version of “better.” And in all reality, all of our confusion about work in general and the rising prices of housing and living, have made millennials just as likely to move back in with their parents. We feel obligated to our family of origin, so we go home for holidays if we haven’t moved back in. But we don’t feel obligated to our romantic partners, to our actual communities and neighbors. We want freedom from our communities, from the implications of our romantic partnerships, from the responsibilities of work demands and family structures, and yet we feel obligated to the false images created by social media, our personal brand, to our political parties and their ideas. The paradox leaves us incapable of taking up responsibility for the things long considered fulfilling.
Ease vs difficulty:
And yet another contradiction. It appears easier than ever to become a star. A recent study found that 86% of young people desire to become online influencers. The rise of internet content-creators since the advent of the Vine app has been one of the major cultural influences of our time. Because of these trends, the internet is saturated with content, and it is harder than ever to build lasting influence. Many have turned to OnlyFans, where the prevalence of pornography allows young women, primarily, to make a living. Earning money by having sex on camera or going viral are all easier, in theory, than ever before. All one has to do is upload the content, and market on social media. Yet, the saturation has made it more difficult to stand out. It is easier to connect with more people, and yet harder to have actual friends as our lives are lived online. Easier access to information, difficult to have the attention span necessary to learn. Difficult to become fit, but influencers would have you believe otherwise. Life is harder for those who are overweight, the fat activist cry of “fat bodies are healthy” attempt to make it easier. AI makes work easy, while being a reasonable and rational human becomes more difficult.
Consistently these paradoxes create the conditions of confusion and lack of clarity that cause members of the last two generations to move and leave behind the institutions built by our parents and their parents.
Growing up, my family was an image of consistency, at least in terms of vocation. My family owned and operated a small business which in my eyes, if not actuality, became a not-so-small business. My grandparents started the thing, and stayed there until they retired. My mom made it run. My father dealt with operational aspects and personnel. My aunts and uncles all put in various levels of time and commitment to growing and operating the company. I was and am surrounded by a group of high capacity, constant, hardworking people.
Family dinners and get-togethers often became dominated by business talks. I always wondered about the motives of a friend’s parents or grandparents when they asked me how my family was. Was it in genuine interest? Was it to gain intel? Was it the maintenance of a business relationship?
Most of that was the mental machinations of an adolescent who thought his family was some kind of small town mafia minus the moral qualms. And maybe some narcissism, that the world is concerned with who my family is. I viewed us as a Godfather-franchise level dynasty, the grandiosity a symptom of my small world/
My first summer with the company, my boss, a non-family member, caught me sleeping in an empty condo unit that I was supposed to be helping clean. She did not call my great-aunt, who managed the property. Or my father, who handled the maintenance staff there. Or my mother, who probably would have fired me. I was grateful then. Later, the shame of my family’s name on the proverbial marquee indicted me for my laziness. It was, consequentially, my last summer at the company.
I still remember the pressure I felt wrestling my first match in my home gym after my great-grandmother died. It was pressure to win with her children and grandchildren in the crowd, amplified by the fact that our mat not only held the team logo in the center, but the family company’s logo in each of the corners, printed after the donation made the new mat possible.
By and large, my generation and the one after us were raised by some of the most consistent men and women in history. They fought wars and built economies and corporations. My family is no different.
But I did not take up the family business, neither did my sister or first cousins. Our family built an institution based on hard work and grit. Still, I went away from the whole thing, and stayed far away as a young man.
Originally, I told myself I did not want to work in an office or contribute to family stresses, or that I wanted to make it on my own. I told myself I wanted to craft my own legacy for my children.
Most of that is really, really true.
But the how much of our leaving, of our abandoning the institutions built by our family is also because of our grappling with the paradoxes of life in this moment? There’s natural independence, and family trauma, and calling, but what else?
Have I viewed myself as so much of an individual that I missed the collective that is my family? Did I self-select into a career path under the guise of “calling,” or did I simply rebel against my small-town society’s value of family dynasty and staying home?
Have I embraced the values of freedom and rest, or am I afraid of the difficulty, the work, the duty with which I would have to operate?
I have not done the work of trying to figure out how the large-scale cultural paradoxes have impacted my life decisions.
Despite all the things I tell myself, even if the conversation centered around the business, my family ate dinners together. The company name adorned my team’s wrestling mat, and I felt the pressure of it. But the sight of my whole family in the high school bleachers relieved some of the pressure. I should have been fired for my laziness, but instead, I learned the way to build work ethic from watching the whole family go into the office and build a life for myself and the rest of the kids.
I don’t know if my parents were fulfilled. Or my grandparents. Or my aunts and uncles or great-grandparents.
But I do know that they were there.
Maybe the question of fulfillment is a product of the current cultural moment, and the resulting chaos of the new generations of adults is the running of an experiment in human happiness that is built on faulty premises.
Perhaps the antidote to the crisis of Chronic Unfulfillment is finding a state of being “there.” There for our families and jobs and friends and communities. Millennials are waiting for the right significant other, the right economic condition, the right city, the right job, to keep them wherever there is.
But maybe the answer is the opposite. Instead of aligning the conditions correctly in order to be present, we must be present despite the conditions in order for them to be tolerable.
To be there, to be present, is fulfillment. All else is extra. But alas, another paradox.
Hampton, I love you're writing. You need a wider audience. You are spot on about millennial unfulfillment. I hadn't thought of it this way before but see it is very true. I think it has to do with Purpose. Lack thereof. We all struggle with our sense of purpose, but our younger generations struggle more. Individual sense of purpose is difficult enough, but we also no longer have a national sense of purpose or identity, which is why we have descended into identity politics. Without purpose, there is no meaning or point to our lives. We are cast adrift on an endless and fruitless search, wandering aimlessly, as you describe. Your family had a sense of purpose, and they lived in community and anchored themselves to their core mission, values and goals. I'm sure it wasn't all harmonious. Community, especially families, can be pretty tumultuous, but their foundation was strong. The path may not have been clear, but they always knew where they were going and the roots on which they stood. We are no longer rooted in family. The young are quick to leave it, easily discarding their heritage and their elders with a never look back policy. Until they need them again. We can no longer define family; we struggle with all sorts; rudderless, without foundation. Family is. ... It is all life. It is Nature. Every life form has a family of some kind, every single living thing is born and does not stand alone. We are all connected and intertwined and are consumed by each other. We forget this in the mindless search to describe terms mother, father, sister, brother. In the Australian Aboriginal language (they are the longest surviving race of humanity we know- over 50,000 years in peace and harmony with each other and nature- no wars, no tribalism), there is no word for family. Family just is. Every single thing on their entire continent is Family to them. Every person, every animal, every tree, every flower, every snake, every spider, every organism; the dust on the ground, the air, the rain. Perhaps that is the obvious secret we overlook.
10 years, 10 jobs! ✌️ And I’m about to start a teacher certification course... 🤦🏽♂️
Enjoyed reading this brother, can’t wait to ponder more of your thoughts!