Navigating The Millennial Minefield

For our generation, it seems we are eternally stuffed. If we secure an amazing career and work up in it, we should've gone travelling or experienced other parts of life. Yet if we experience these other parts of life, like happiness, we are penalised in the work place for placing our life experiences above our career choices. It constantly feels like a lose lose situation. I'm sure it's always been the case in some way or another, but the pressures of social media, university degrees, being on trend, and the now infamous FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that has sprung up with the onset of social media, I certainly feel that our mental and physical wellbeing as a generation is suffering. 

One reason we decided we needed to make a change and begin our adventure of living in a van and driving around Europe was that we both felt we had stagnated in our lives. Not so much with each other, though obviously that change in a relationship from new romance to long term life sentence does create stagnation. It was more in a professional and personal capacity, fuelled by both social and mass media tearing us into conflicting pieces of ourselves.

We've both spent the last 4 years hopping from one job to another, going in completely different directions with each switch, just hoping to find happiness with a wage that supported basic living costs. Obviously this choice of doing what is essentially paid work experience has it's upsides and downsides. Ups: It's paid experimentation, finding out what you like and don't like doing, you meet new people, gain new skills and transfer them to both home and work life. Downs: You almost always start at the bottom in the new "office" wherever that may be, getting your head around new office politics is daunting and not always possible, generally lower pay cheques than you really need for your essential bills, and at interviews coming up with creative ways to frame your blatant job hopping can be a pain. 

Younger generations are often a little too keen to jump the gun and blame the generations before us for our struggles. Yes, Margaret Thatcher was in a generation before us, as was George Bush Jr, so perhaps there's some merit in assigning an element of blame to those previously in charge. But then we had Obama, well, he's not our generation and who's to say his choices haven't entirely mucked something up in 30 years time for our small ones?

For me, a lot of the blame has to be assigned to ourselves. We're constantly striving to be 'better' than our forebears, with no thought to ask if they were happy in their twenties. Perhaps they weren't, perhaps the twenties experience is perilous no matter what era you grew up in, but our constant need to succeed just seems to drive us to ruin ourselves. Do we really need to show the world our fake lives? The sunshine, the perfect make up, the photo filters? We've let reality get away from us, and we are the ones who will ruin the experience of life for the generation below us. Because all they have to look up to is falsified imagery, ridiculous footballers pay cheques, and parents who are essentially miserable and worn out from constantly keeping up appearances. 

I'd like to take this moment to remind you that yes, we get to stay in some amazing places with gorgeous views, but do you think they just appeared? Remember that behind every gorgeous place or funny thing Bailey gets up to that we show you, there have been horrendous sleepless nights, sniping at each other over driving style, and perilous parking places that we didn't feel safe in. We try as hard as we can on Twitter, Snapchat and on this blog to show and tell you the TRUTH, not just the gorgeous photos Matt puts on Instagram. Yes, we post artsy hipster pics, to appeal to the artsy hipster types. But for the masses, we want you to know the hard parts too. 

At the start of the trip, Matt asked me at one point if it was okay to film me doing something mundane, where my hair was a birds nest and my face akin to that of an early teen. I paused for a second while my vanity tried to get a look in, and reminded both Matt and myself that our entire angle for this trip is realism and honesty. That look, in that situation, is reality, and I want you all to know the reality of this life. It's a massive decision to make, but I personally feel a lot more comfortable in my own skin telling you the truth. If I insisted I wore make up or didn't show my cellulite on camera, I'd be doing you a disservice, and ultimately it would be my conscience on the line for lying to you. 

So, to hell with make up ladies. To hell with the perfectly filtered selfies. Show the world who you are, and its the same for you chaps, show us the real you. Show us your talents, not your perfectly preened eyebrows or how well you can buy a bottle of Grey Goose in a club VIP area using your almost maxed out credit card. By all means, post an artsy pic or something that makes you feel good about yourself, but don't post it IN ORDER to feel good about yourself. Other peoples opinions are not YOUR happiness measure. I know that's hard, and that there are a lot of people, young and old, who can't grasp the concept, but for goodness sake, you were born to be you, not a plasticised effagy, terrified of someone pointing out a piece of dandruff. 

We all need to sit back and relax. Yes, sometimes switching off is completely boring, sometimes it's shitty to have nothing in front of your eyes to occupy your mind, and nothing in your ears except your own voice taunting you. That little demon voice comes up more than we'd like to admit, but I have a theory that the less we feed the demon with fakery and oneupmanship, the quieter he'll get for all of us. 

I know this all may sound a little preachy, but I say it because we're struggling with it too. Everything I'm saying is something we have done or experienced, and quite honestly, still are working through. It's difficult sometimes on Twitter when I pop an honest tweet online, because I'll get no interactions. Yes, as a human being, that makes me feel a bit crap, but why on earth should it? I'm posting for you to enjoy and share the experience IF YOU WANT TO. Why should I expect you to gratify my feelings about an amazing experience for me, if you've not shared the feeling? 

Social media needs to be looked at and used as more of an open diary where every day is different, and most days are hard. I'd love for it to be less of a parade of our latest and greatest achievements and nothing more. The paraders succeed in making us jealous, or envious, or feel shitty about ourselves because we can't attain their filtered hashtag life. I think if we could see and share their difficult experiences leading up to that perfect post, we could rejoice with them in pride, rather than being fooled into thinking they are nothing but perfect.

You don't have to quit your life and buy a campervan to do it either. You don't even have to do anything drastic. Choose not to follow certain posts, choose to say kind things to those being truthful and keeping reality real, instead of some mass produced gimmick that no one can achieve (Made in Chelsea anyone? Or Love Island? Watch them if you like, I have my own guilty TV pleasures, but please god remember producers are paid bonuses to have fights happen on those shows, it is completely manufactured. Every. Single. Scene.)

It sounds bit wank, but be kind, be strong, be confident in you. YouTube isn't a viable career choice for the masses, but if it truly makes you happy, go ahead, post some videos just for the fun of it. Do you, be happy in your choices, and if you're not, take a step back, turn off Facebook and listen to yourself. It'll come to you, especially if you're just enjoying yourself. People having fun have a certain light about them, even when their chips are down, because it comes from the inside people! You'll see, the universe and all it's occupants (perhaps apart from mass murderers?) are drawn to internal happiness. Why do you think the self improvement market is so fertile! We want to be better versions of us, so we can achieve that light inside and attract better life experiences. 

This adventure has helped Matt already to figure out something which would turn his light on. He wants to go back into working in TV. Perfect, if that turns your light on Husband, do it, we'll deal with how to survive on intermittent paycheques when we get there. The light and enjoyment in life is so much more valuable than a nice dining set. 

I'm getting closer to finding one of my light switches too. I miss dancing, and there's a class when we get back home that embraces women, all ages and shapes, and teaches them dance routines in heels! What's more sassy than that! Even thinking about joining in one of the classes I see the videos of on Facebook puts a smile on my face. 

So when we're back, I'm doing it. I'm letting my guard down, I'm not listening to my demon telling me I'm not good enough or thin enough to join in, and I'm going to the damn class. Because I'm in charge. Not my demon. He likes living in the dark, of course he's going to try and stop me from turning on my lights! Well guess what demon? I pay the bills here, and I'm upping the electricity budget as of NOW! 

J x