20 Something Manifesto. Christine Hassler

job or life, use the person as a source of motivation and information. Ask the person specific questions that may spark insight about your own path and rescue you from comparison land. For example: “What is the most significant event or decision in your life that has gotten you to where you are today?” “What qualities do you attribute to your success?” “What have you had to sacrifice?” “What has surprised you about your job?” “What do you really enjoy?” “What challenges do you face?”

      If you cannot directly communicate with the person, write down all the things you admire and respect about them that inspire you. What qualities do you notice? What specifically do you want to emulate? As you learn more about what inspires you, you will gain insight into what truly moves you, and this will help you carve your own path. Allow inspiration to be a form of investigation rather than comparison.

      INSTANT-GRATIFICATION GENERATION

      There is a sense of entitlement that is an epidemic among twenty somethings, and I include myself in this. At my first job I wondered where my business cards were. I mean, didn’t they know I graduated from a top school with a 3.9 GPA? Turns out they didn’t care — no one really did. Many twenty somethings write to me expressing frustration over not being taken seriously because of their age or about feeling underestimated. Where does this expectation come from that success, results, and recognition should appear instantly? And why is it dangerous?

      “Everything seems to be happening too slow — I want to see results in everything I do now.”

       Content developer, 27, married, Korea

      Of course, not every twenty something suffers from this, but I believe the feeling of wanting instant gratification is becoming more and more common. With today’s media, our accessibility to the world is infinite. The internet, cell phones, and BlackBerries have made it possible to get any information we want from anywhere in the world at any time. We can share and communicate with anyone instantly. In college, we get immediate feedback and recognition for our accomplishments at the end of every semester; in our jobs, we may get a review every six months. We have fast-food restaurants and ready-made meals at grocery stores. We are not used to waiting because what we want is usually designed to be had easily and quickly.

      But this instant-gratification epidemic goes deeper than drive-up windows and twenty-four-hour banking. I received the following email from a recent twenty-three-year-old college graduate that puts it well: “Very frequently my generation seems to reflect one where we have set the highest expectations for ourselves. We have all this technology; our babyboomer parents tell us we’re special and answer yes to our requests with cruisecontrol frequency. Study after study reveals us as the most narcissistic of any generation before us, we have become soaked in a celebrity-based culture, and we expect to become instantly successful, famous, rich, powerful, recognized. But these expectations have made us super-sensitive to the inevitable failures and disappointments of life, the bites of reality that have plagued every generation before us. So many of us are recognizing what it’s like to be brought down to Earth, like I have the last eight months.”

      “It is difficult because everyone is at a different point in their life, and it’s hard not to compare where you are with others (especially friends). But everyone is different. The older I get, the more I am able to understand this and can be happy with my accomplishments. I am working on not comparing my life to others — and it’s a relief!”

       Therapist, 26, serious relationship, Delaware

      For many, the twenties are a frustrating combination of having the world at your fingertips but not knowing how to grasp it. Twenty somethings today want and expect to have it all — and who can blame you? You’ve been conditioned to believe it. You’ve grown up in a time when “anything is possible” and “you can have it all” became bumper sticker–worthy mantras. And many times, parents encouraged this, eager to provide a life they did not have as children. Again, no matter what any of our personal situations may have been, we all soak up these beliefs from the wider culture.

      It has been said that each generation stands on the shoulders of the previous. From the expectations that many twenty somethings feel from parents, authorities, and society at large, the previous generation seems to be on stilts. They have raised the bar of what there is to achieve, and twenty somethings feel the weight of those expectations. The American Dream has expanded from the simple white picket fence to an unreachable belief in “having it all.”

      “I believe our baby-boomers parents have very high expectations, and sometimes we feel discouraged because we haven’t reached those lucrative goals. I just have to remind myself that I am only twenty-four, and I have a lifetime to live. The only expectations that are truly important are my own.”

       Legal administrator, 24, single, South Carolina

“THE BLESSED MISERABLE GENERATION” by Julie, 23

       DECLARATION: Too much opportunity andtoo many options left me paralyzed.I wasn’t thinking about anything but what I wanted.

      Confession: I played with Barbies until I was thirteen. Skipper was studying anthropology and having an affair with her psychology professor. Kelly was jet-setting to Paris for an unpaid internship with Vogue and working on her tan. Midge was writing the next great American novel, while Barbie was putting in long hours at a law firm and getting divorced. Ken, who was a successful doctor, traveled to various medical conferences around the country. Barbie and Ken were responsible; they worked hard and brought home the bacon. They encouraged Skipper, Midge, and Kelly to be creative, and college was inevitable. They wouldn’t have student loans; they would study dance and film at small liberal arts colleges in New England. They would have cars already paid for and money to fall back on. They wouldn’t need part-time jobs. Their options were endless as my imagination ran wild.

      Eventually, I stopped playing with Barbies, but I still believed in boundless opportunity. I still hadn’t made the transition from child to adult, a transition I assumed would naturally occur during college. I was wrong. Instead of being a microcosm of the “real world,” college was more like an episode of MTV’s reality show. We were given so much, endless subjects to study and explore, libraries full of books to read, not to mention food, gyms, and other resources that we weren’t paying for. We didn’t have much responsibility, besides class and homework, yet somehow everyone I knew in college had some sort of problem. Everyone was stressed out and complained. Then of course there was the drama of parties — hook ups and the constant drunken haze that made everyone act like animals in a circus ring from Thursday until Sunday night.

      We were miserable, not realizing how blessed we were. I wish I had the perspective that I do now, and that I had forced myself to take a few steps back and focus on what really mattered. It was only when someone passed away, got sick, or was in an accident that anyone in college took a moment to act like they really cared. It was the same with politics; you wouldn’t hear a peep from anyone about health care, taxes, or the state of our education system until just before election week, and then all of a sudden everyone had an opinion about everything. We were a group of young people who didn’t have a cause. We were so different from our parents’ generation.

      My parents had careers in medicine and business. They got through college on scholarships and by working. They understood that college was a means to financial security, and that money wasn’t something your father deposited into an ATM. They had opinions, not because it seemed like they should, but because they knew that life outside their social circle would affect them. When they had children, they were thrilled that they could give their daughters a life full of summer camp, vacations, writing classes, and French horn lessons. My parents showed me that security, love, and opportunities were endless — so I cultivated a vivid imagination. I fell in and out of love — there was always something to plan for: the next party, the job, the apartment, and the book I wanted to write. Possibility was enough, and it kept me from growing