Millennials have humbled, taught and encouraged me
I have always looked young. I'm the baby in my family, and I guess I've ridden that particular wave as long as I've been able to. I was carded in liquor stores well into my mid 40s and was even the reason my husband couldn't buy us a bottle of wine once (I went with him but didn't bring any ID). Since I've always looked young and have been surrounded by youth and energy, I've also felt it. However, once I made the switch from my almost two decades of teaching to my current role, I was inadvertently thrown into lingo and terminology that I didn't really know. That pretty much burst my bubble, tossed me right back into reality and woke me up to the fact that I'm not one of the young 'uns anymore, and there's a whole lot in my new world that I needed to learn.
In the past few years, the young people I've met with as clients have often used terminology that I've had to ask about or look up. Sometimes it's not been business lingo but a new trendy platform that everyone seems to know about or an app that will simplify your daily processes. The fact is, I have been flooded with new information from so many of the millennials I've had as clients that I feel like I'm constantly learning from them. New acronyms seem to pop up by the day, and the "kids" instantly work them into their dialogue and Instagram stories. I find it exciting and energizing learning from these very intelligent and fast-paced minds.
And that's what has struck me as being the good thing about accepting that I'm not in that "young adult" category anymore. I have accumulated a good amount of life experience, wisdom and knowledge that has a lot to do with having stepped into the next age category. Millennials have a different kind of knowledge, and together, it's a win-win situation. I enjoy surprising people either one way or another. After sharing about my years in teaching, one of my clients asked me, "How old ARE you?" and was totally shocked when I admitted my age to her (48 btw). Others closer to my age and older are surprised when I suggest an app, platform or system that could help them with various daily tasks. "How do you know all of this?" they ask. So I guess I'm stuck in the middle, and it's actually a pretty cool place to be. It's like I'm in an assembly line accepting something from the person on my left and passing it on to the person on my right. Do you see the visual?
I remember being in my 20s and feeling as though my generation was often not respected by the so-called "adults" at the time. The 30s are a much better age where you're definitely still young, but you're finally treated as an adult. You hit 40 and feeling old or young seems to be up to you. I won't touch the 50s as I'm not there quite yet, thank you very much. Millennials are currently between the ages of 25 and 40, Google tells me, and they are a wealth of information, creativity, confidence and out-of-the-box thinking. I would encourage everyone to connect with as many folks in this generation as possible. I have found the millennials I've worked with to be the opposite of the negative stereotype that's often been assigned to them. They are hard-working, proactive, polite and enthusiastic. I am blessed to call many of them my friends. They have never made me feel stupid or less than, and they are just as eager to learn from me as I am from them.
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