The millennials have grown up with ambitions. Ambitions nurtured by their parents, nurtured by society and propagated by the media. Yes, with the end of the Great Depression, our parents got better opportunities. Late Generation X-ers suddenly found doors opened to private jobs, which paid them much more than the Government jobs. They learnt that a degree in MBA went a long way. They learnt that the better they were at academics, the faster their career chart grew. Most of them could afford to buy a house and run a full-fledged family by the age of 28.
When they had kids, they thought that the academics + MBA formula will be enough for their offsprings to earn a salary that most of us only dream about. And they drilled this into us and how! “Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab, kheloge koodoge banoge kharab” became our anthem. We studied hard, spent far more economically than Gen Z does and believed that after our MBAs we will rule the world. Getting a decent job was suddenly not enough. Sharmaji ka beta gave way to Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs with Sachin and Binny Bansals becoming our poster boys for success. Middle class parents started looking down upon their children as incompetent because they were not drawing a package of Rs. 2 Lakh per month and were not able to afford their own car, let alone an apartment, by the age of 28. Every time some relative bragged about their son/daughter being in IBM/Microsoft/Google your parents looked at you with pity and failure. If someone posted pictures of travelling to exotic locations (your Facebook timeline is filled with such people), you end up feeling trapped in the monotonous routine of Home-Office-Home-Repeat. If someone posted pictures of partying every Friday night at some hip night club, you counted the pennies in your pocket and waged a war with your heart over the necessities and luxuries.
And THIS is where the problems started for the Us.
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| Pic Courtesy: The Odyssey Online |
In order to prove to the world that we can achieve more than what our parents did, we started slogging harder. We took up jobs far away from home, spending more time travelling than exercising, trying to achieve more than our bodies and pockets could ever allow. We fell into the trap of appraisals, working harder and still not being recognized. After all, how could we? There are at least 10 of us vying for the same position in the same company. If someone passed us over for promotion, our dejection grew and self confidence plummeted. We ran faster, we ran harder and did not realise that we are moving around in circles. We don’t realise that not everyone is destined for greatness. What we do not see in the media is that for every successful young billionaire, there are 100s if not 1000s of unsuccessful people whose dreams are shattered.
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| Pic Courtesy: Truehuenews |
The middle class life is important and there’s nothing wrong in leading a life where you live on rent, drive/ride a second hand vehicle and don’t have a huge amount of savings which will be inherited by your kids. Embracing this life allows us to make mistakes, hold regrets and live life. It allows us to live a life where we spend more time with people who will surround our death beds than live for a boss who is never going to give you your appraisal until he/she gets his. It allows us to care for our children and see them grow. It allows us to have heart-to-heart conversations with our spouses. It allows us to have dreams of a better future. It allows us to live a life, the way we want to. So go ahead and embrace and enjoy your middle class life.
Exceptional thought process. However, the 3 paras from beginning made me realised that the character could have taken the highway too, the 4th para seemed that the character succumbed to the pressure of the society and took the mid way of a middle class life as the heading suggests. Would love to hear from you that if not the middle class life, what else can a person expect from his/her life.
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