Real Thoughts

Being born in 1981, I have the honor of belonging to a not very exclusive group of individuals dubbed the “Millennials,” or “Generation Y,” or “Baby Boomlets” depending on who is doing the talking. Many experts fear we’ll be the first generation in over a century to do worse than our parents. We face crippling and fast ballooning college debt, health care costs, and in the not so distant future, higher taxes meant to pay down debt created before most of us could even vote.

That’s a lot to put in one group of people, yet as a generation we are continuously being criticized and belittled. Words that have been said about the Millennials include “pampered,” “entitled,” and “spoiled.” Just recently Ruben Navarrette Jr. posted on CNN’s website that “Americans need to ‘reboot’ the millennial generation” since we’re “unequipped for setbacks” and “feel entitled to the best of everything.”

At a seminar that I attended recently, the speaker talked about how Millennials refuse to “pay their dues,” instead expecting instant gratification. I won’t vouch for every member of my generation; however, in my experience, most Millennials are creative, ambitious, friendly, innovative, and highly educated. And when it comes to paying dues, in my experience, dues are not a problem as long as there is meaning to the work to be done.

The U.S. is drowning in debt and the future of the social safety nets created at the beginning of the Twentieth Century might not be around by the time my generation retires. Every passing day, I’m more and more convinced that I might never be able to retire, so if I’m going to have to work for the rest of my life, I want to enjoy going to work. I want my efforts to mean something.

But it is not all doom and gloom for Millennials, as I truly believe that we have what it takes to stand up to the challenges we face. I will even go as far as to say that, one day, we might come to be known as “The Second Greatest Generation.”  While the Greatest Generation had World War II and the Great Depression, the Millennials have the Great Recession, multiple wars in the Middle East, climate change, and a looming energy crisis. These are challenges indeed, yet just like our forefathers, we may have the untapped potential to challenge the status quo and redefine our time in history.

Last week I attended Final Draft Inc. Annual Award Event. This year the recipient of the Hall of Fame Award was Steven Zaillian. For those who are not familiar with him, Zaillian is the screenwriter of such major films as The Falcon and the Snowman, Schindler’s List, Clear and Present Danger, Gangs of New York, American Gangster, and most recently Moneyball.

In his acceptance speech, Zaillian talked about his current project, the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. How many drafts of the script do you think her wrote? 20? Maybe 30? Well, he confessed to having 126 drafts of the screenplay saved on his computer.

I’m a big believer that if you work hard enough, you can achieve whatever you want. I know that a lot of people share this belief, but at the same time, I think we tend to often underestimate how much hard work it really takes to achieve anything extraordinary. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell gives us a specific number of hours needed to reach excellence in any field which he refers as “The 10,000-hour rule.” This is an incredibly large amount of time, and it ought to make us look at achievement and high achievers, like Zaillian, with different eyes and even a newfound sense of understanding.