We Don’t Have To Become What We Hated

Do you like your life — for the right reasons?

I see the challenges in the world. We all do. And sure, we can point fingers at Boomers — their indulgence, their punting of moral responsibility, their short-termism. I’ve done it plenty.

But I don’t want to hide behind that anymore. Blaming them dissolves my own responsibility. And as I enter middle age, I don’t have time for it. I could be closer to the end of my life than its beginning.

Which brings me to the question I keep coming back to: do you like your life — for the right reasons?

That question cuts through all the fluff. And it sets up the one that matters most: if not, what’s next?

So much of my inner world has been distorted by bad questions. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “What gives your life meaning?” These questions sneak in a bias — that vocation is what matters most, that who we are is singular and fixed. It isn’t.

If you’re around my age, life is probably starting to feel stable. Kids might be out of diapers, or close. Work is in a groove, even when it grinds. We’ve survived the crucible years or are damn close.

That stability is good. But then what?

Do we just get comfortable and greedy and do the exact same things we’ve spent years criticizing Boomers for?

No.

We work on what’s next instead of falling into comfort and self-absorption. We have to re-anchor right when things stabilize — that’s exactly when we’re at risk of losing sight. Because the goal, at least for me, is to bend my life toward the highest human act: caring for others. We’re finally strong enough. Finally stable enough to do it.

The next few years — as millennials pivot into middle age — are generation-defining. I feel that personally. This sets up our penultimate act, the last stretch where we actually have the vigor to leave the world better than we found it.

Comfort is tempting. But it’s a trap.

If we mail it in during middle age, we won’t just be selfish. We’ll be hypocrites. We’ll have criticized Boomers for exactly what we became. That’s worse.

How we transition into middle age will define us — individually and collectively. Will we live up to our highest ideals, or leave the mess we inherited exactly as we found it?

What’s next isn’t far away. It’s now or never.

So — do you like your life? For the right reasons?

If we do, we already know what comes next. And the world needs us to go do it.