"The Unluckiest Generation": Millennial Stoicism for a Really Rotten Year

Epictetus - a great name for a cat.

By Michael Burghers - https://archive.org/details/epictetienchirid00epic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9071933

If you were born between 1980 and 1984, you may have:

• Graduated high school or college around 9/11—the worst terrorist attack in American history and (far less importantly) the start of a down economy.

• Hit your early working years or gotten out of grad school around the Great Recession, i.e. the worst economic collapse since 1929.

• Hit your working prime (and possibly began raising kids) in the worst pandemic in over 100 years.

This is like having three “one hundred year floods” in 20 years. Speaking of floods, you are also staring down rapidly increasing mass destruction by climate change, regardless of what you think caused it.

If you were born after 1984, you obviously have dealt with these catastrophes—or their aftermath—just at different times in your life.

Any single one of these events would normally define an entire generation. It’s no wonder Millennials have been deemed “the unluckiest generation in U.S. history.” For most, scars from slower economic growth than any other generation will last a long time.

On top of each catastrophe is a roadblock in our political institutions, and a sense that nothing will change any time soon.

For example, recent data suggest that 88% of Gen-Z believes Black people are treated less fairly than white people. Two-thirds of all Americans believe the government should do more to reverse the effects of climate change, including nearly half of Gen-Z Republicans. Yet these are not the views of governing political figures.

A giant disconnect between younger voters and their elected officials will shrink—at least to some extent—over time. But for generations stuck with three generation-defining catastrophes, will it be too late?

The angst and anxiety surrounding these challenges has led to “Millennial Stoicism.” That is, the rise in popularity of authors like Ryan Holiday and Mark Manson. But it’s not just kids taking a hard look at ancients like Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism is one of the bases of cognitive behavioral therapy. Look here for the longer explanation.

This year has been awful. The pandemic has imperiled our health, the economy, millions of jobs and livelihoods, and on top of all that, isolation has undermined our ability to cope with loss, anxiety, and depression.

To be honest I have had to work hard to be resilient. I do really well in crisis, or any time adrenaline takes over (like trial). But to me the word of the year is “insidious.” It’s so… long and relentless.

Here’s the short translation of a few principles of the ancient Stoics:

• “It is impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don’ have.” - Epictetus (probably a good name for a cat)

• If you can’t control it, learn from it. Then focus on what you can control.

• Everything is practice for the next thing.

• We are guaranteed nothing. Every moment not this one is a gift, and there is meaning in every moment.

This last point may seem especially cliché and corny. But consider reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. The point is not to belittle one’s suffering by comparing to the Holocaust, but to remember that even stripped of all humanity, we can choose to be grateful.

You’re probably thinking, oh thanks a lot your advice is to just choose to be happy? Yes and no.

How does that sink in beyond just words and philosophy? Empathy. For me there is a direct correlation between how empathetic I’m being and how grateful I am. You need the perspective of “being in” the situations of others to appreciate your own.

Empathy does not always mean shouldering others’ pain, either. Does a child dwell on how things “should be” in the world? No. A child has no expectation of the world to be orderly—perhaps a more natural and realistic view.

Does a toddler think, man I’ve busted my face and can’t get this walking thing? No—a child is too curious to experience the world to consider giving up. A child accepts falling, learns from it, and lives in the next moment.

So, be curious, be in the moment, and be well.