a generation pathetically uninspired.

I haven't written in months.  Why?  Great question - one I've been asking myself since the last time I tried putting pen to paper.  Left feeling uninspired, passionless, and incapable of accomplishing anything creative I wondered if I was slipping into some un-characterizable, unknown, form of depression.  Why wasn't I happy?  Why did it seem so hard to organize my thoughts into some sort of coherency?  Why did it seem like every time I tried all that would come out was nonsensical, unintelligible, and unimportant venting?  

Do I really have nothing to say?

Do I feel nothing?

No - that's not the case.  I just fell into the perpetual stereotype of myself - a lazy, underemployed, under-caring, typical 20-something millennial striving for "happiness."  The discussion of our millennial generation has become some sort of a fad.  Articles are appearing everywhere, on almost every blog source and news outlet, but they all are just regurgitations of the same things.  We are told that our generational characteristics include being "lazy, underemployed, under-caring," but is that really true?  We claim to be striving for love, passion within our work, and happiness - but who doesn't want that?  We all want the same things, but we can't accept that our wants can only be fulfilled by ourselves.  We externalize when we should internalize.

Love is impossible if we don't love ourselves first.  I see friends continually looking externally to find it, never making the conscious effort to understand who they are internally, what they are actually looking for, or what they actually need.  The attention and pretense of love has come to be enough.  Manipulating ourselves into thinking the unfortunate monotony that comes with dating in this day and age is what manifests "real, stable, and long-lasting" love is built of.  Saying it has become enough and showing it has become unnecessary.  We can't recognize the love we should want to accept, or appreciate it, unless it slaps us in the face, and by that point - it's often too late. 

If love is impossible, then how will we ever find passion?  One is required to have the other and I believe that, as a generation, we will never truly understand love or the facets which construct it.  The trust, faith, and obligation that love seeks is lost on our selfishness and if we can't understand how to build a great love we will never experience fulfilling passion.  Brought up thinking we deserve the world, and that it is our oyster, we set our standards and expectations so inextricably high for what we think we want and deserve that we can barely pick up the pieces when we inevitably fail.  But passion isn't developed purely out of love, that is merely the planted seed from which is grows - it comes from our response to struggle and failure.  Ben Franklin said, "if passion drives you, let reason hold the reins," but we've grown into beings that are driven by reason and our need for quantifiable success.  We hope for passion but it's generally passed over for security.  

I think its time to reevaluate how we deem success.  Working eighty hours a week - in a job we only sometimes like - that provides a good paycheck while adding nothing of meaningful value to our lives is definitely not what I signed up for in this game of life, but it seems to be the path most chosen.  Tirelessly working for the weekend has become such a widespread theme that the notion of "doing what you love" is slowly becoming obsolete.  

I suppose I'm naive and irresponsible in my thinking but I find it to be outside of myself to muster up the energy and dedication required to live such a dreary lifestyle.  I want no part of it, no part of the overreaching sadness that accompanies a life unfulfilled.  I want happiness.  No, I demand it.  I don't think I deserve anything less than it.  I don't think anyone deserves anything less than it.  But who really knows what being happy means anymore?  It's become such a fleeting experience that we are rarely blessed with its truest form.  When is the last time you heard someone express how overwhelmingly happy they were with every aspect of their life?  I cannot, confidently, say that I've ever heard someone say this.  There is always something holding us back from it.  We are so incapable of realizing bliss because we are too busy realizing imperfection.  Our need to find fault revokes our ability to experience anything more than temporary happiness.

As individuals, we are lost.  As a generation, we are hopeless.  We are so pathetically uninspired that we don't actually know how to love, develop passion, or be happy.  We're stuck in a "millennial rut" - striving for these things without really understanding the personal components that will lead us there.  We don't know ourselves or make an effort to, reducing us to  generalities.  We are nothing more than walking stereotypes and wanting more is extraordinary.  Our complacency is our greatest fault.  Our insistency on blaming previous generations for providing us with the perfect conditions in which to grow into such bratty, selfish, demanding, and "tired" individuals is exceptional.  We were given too easy a ride and now we don't know what to do with ourselves.  

In being provided with everything we've, simultaneously, lost it all.  

self-enslavement & rehabilitation.

What does it mean to be a slave? Literally, "a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them."  Growing up in the United States we are afforded the opportunity to not be literally, or legally, enslaved by another but I believe we, figuratively, enslave ourselves.  

As we age we immerse ourselves more and more into the societal addiction we develop through our, slowly becoming, innate need to feel "connected."  This, combined with our need to stay "ahead of the curve" or "in the know," has forcefully taken over our lives.  Have you ever noticed how no one posts anything on their respective social media accounts that isn't overly "happy," or exciting?  We've perpetuated this need to maintain a picture perfect outward appearance out of our need to maintain an, often outrageous, image of happiness.  We are so uncomfortable with the fact that self-establishment, within the world outside of college - "the real world," is a long, strenuous, and individualized process that we begin to lose functionality and saneness when we cannot project an appearance of "keeping up."  

We force ourselves into a, concurrent, enslavement to our environment as well as to the social media stratosphere.  Our constant maintenance of our various social media outlets has become an, almost, unhealthy obsession.  Insert smartphones, and our other various devices, here and we have no real way of, ever, escaping the madness.  Spontaneity has gone so far out of the window that should we ever have the urge indulge in it now requires an endless amount of planning.  Group messaging, twitter, the - now basic - ability to reach a people in a mass communicatory manner has contrarily distanced us from one another.  We no longer call to make plans, we text.  We no longer meet with friends to "catch up," we tweet.  

I recently made the plunge into the deep end - I finally bought an iphone.  After spending a little bit over a year only somewhat addicted to my windows phone - my first smart phone - I made the transition to the long-loved Apple product thinking I would be able to manage the addiction that I saw, so many of, my friends enduring.  Years of hating on instagram and twitter, claiming to never make an account for either, I did.  Though I can cite the need to post show photos, as an attempt to help build the social media umbrella, for the music venue I work as an intern for - I can't honestly say that I don't use either of the applications for personal use as well.  I, shamelessly, admit to being an iPhone & social media addict.  It is almost as if my iPhone has become an extension of my arm, never far enough out of reach that I can't hear a tweet, text, or phone call.  

I, shamelessly, admit that I am a, figurative, slave.  Figurative because I am not being forcefully contracted by another individual, every manner in which I feel enslaved is self-induced, self-enforced, self- imposed.  Though I have slowly managed to come to terms with my over-indulgence into this lifestyle, it was a hard struggle.  I'm not sure if this how others may feel about the subject, when observed in their own lives, but definitely - for me - I struggled between my want to maintain my individuality, by not creating accounts on multiple social media applications, and the want to connect with people on various levels.  This level of connection that we, myself included, crave to have between ourselves and our peers has created a highly pressurized society where, I think, we are basically succumbing to environmental-induced peer pressure.  This is something we fear.  

Though we are living in a culture that praises and values individuality as seen through the importance we place on celebrity, we somehow seek to achieve this in a society that is lacking in originality and built on the monotony we built through our "#addiction" to technology and connectedness.  We are all living oxymorons through our enslavement to the devices, and vices, that this technology provides us.  We will never be truly individual until we are willing, and able, to disconnect from these devices and reconnect with ourselves, and our peers, on a more intimate and emotional level.  Do you think we can find our paths to rehabilitation? Could we ever be able to live contentedly in a world where we don't sit in the same room, as those we call our friends, without spending a majority of our time connected to those we are not immediately with?  This rehabilitation will be found, again, once we place a higher value on the interpersonal connections and relationships we have with others over the social media presence we maintain to impress people we barely know.

forget about hope.

What is hope?

It's an idea.  It's a theory.  It's a simple concept which we cling to in order to make our lives seem as though they hold meaning.  But why do we force ourselves to hope for meaning and self-worth rather than decide what will establish these things, in our lives, and proactively go after them.  

We spend such a great deal of our teens, early and mid-twenties hoping that "things" will improve, that we will figure out who we are, that we will decide what we want out of life, and we will figure out our individualized plan in order to achieve these things.  Though these goals are well-intentioned and grand - they achieve nothing.  We spend so much of our time thinking, analyzing, and over-analyzing the external factors that, we believe, guide our paths in life that we ignore ourselves to the point that we become completely out of touch with who we are.  We hope for happiness and success, so much so that we allow others to determine what will bring these things into our lives rather than attempting any sort of self-discovery that will encourage "self-specialized" passions and successes.  

I think it's time to move one from these externally formed hopes.  It's time to move on from the interpretations of success and happiness that society has built for us.  It's time to become ourselves.  No path is the "right" path, no path is the "wrong" path.  I think that as long as the path we choose to follow allows us the opportunity to determine our own dreams, follow said dreams, and, either, succeed or fail at those dreams - we have no need for hope.  We all have the ability to build our own destiny and create our own happiness - all we have left to do is to realize that we are our own creators.  

So why do we bother with hope?  We allow it to have complete control over our emotional well-being.  We allow it to determine the roller-coaster like fluctuations that sway our moods.  I say we forget about hope and we proactively determine our future, our successes, and our happiness.  I say we find ourselves.  I say we determine our own paths.  I say we do whatever the hell we want and we take control of our lives.

Everlastingly impressionable.

We strive for uniqueness, but with the enforced conformity society impresses upon us - we've lost our ability to achieve it.  The concept of true individuality has rapidly diminished as, with each generation, we have lost ourselves to the technologically bred normalcy that we subconsciously, and innately, seek.  Without even knowing it we have intrinsically coupled ourselves together - we have included ourselves into "the group."  Though this is something we, often, claim to not want or need, are we really that in touch with our own psyche that we can claim to know what those things truly are?

The constant connectedness to the surrounding world that we encounter in our daily lives has created a great disconnect between our needs, our wants, and our understanding of ourselves.  We have grown to be incredibly dependent.  We have been bred to maintain overwhelmingly consumeristic tendencies.  We have been cultivated to project a state of elitism and status, to project and demand a specific image.  We perpetuate a lifestyle of desire, wanting, or manipulated need.  This lifestyle has become something which can tip our emotions so swiftly when we discover the successes of others, their ability to stay ahead of the curve, and their ability to stay "on trend."  The superficiality that we have created within ourselves through the, often, unrealized disconnect between these things has only served to further the disconnect between ourselves and society as well.  In allowing ourselves to lose the importance of knowing ourselves, our friends, our motivations, our passions we have lost ourselves to the exterior.  We have allowed the peripheral to maintain a sense of control over our lives - we have allowed ourselves the label of being everlastingly impressionable.

Our need to be trendy or hip has devalued our individual passions.  We choose whats popular over what may be more personally satisfying.  

Our need for "likes" forces us to share only the good with our "friends."  We choose to over-inflate our emotional well-being to the outside world because of it, rather than sharing all aspects of our lives with the select few with whom we can be our most genuine selves.

Why have we chosen to forsake ourselves?  We no longer crave the personal satisfaction that can create the individual happiness we could find from the simplest pleasures as children.  Our daily happiness has become so reliant on exterior sources that we each, individually, create an incredibly convoluted structure of things that bring us happiness and the varying degrees to which they can.  In our individual construction of this "happiness pyramid" we only continue our free fall into generality.  It is simpler for us to gain happiness through the same vices we see others deriving theirs from, rather than find vices unique to our person.  It is simpler for us to categorize ourselves as we do others, saving ourselves from internal pressures and disappointments - as it is easier to exist in a world where we can place blame outside of the self.

When will we be able to distinguish ourselves from the pack?  When will being a lone wolf become acceptable?  When will being unique become a title of value again?  We may be everlastingly impressionable, but when did that stop us from proactively choosing what we allow to contribute to our self-identity?

Heartbreak.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201208/social-rejection-can-fuel-creativity

Heartbreak fuels the purest forms of creativity.  We discover new passions and rediscover old ones as we pick up the shattered pieces, allowing us to relearn how to love.  Despite this realization, what seems to be escaping many is that rejection and heartbreak isn't limited to, solely, the romantic aspect of our lives.  Our endurance of such things can be experienced in our platonic friendships, our feelings of isolation, our academic career, as well as our work life.  Is it simply that we overvalue our romantic relationships, in comparison with other important aspects of our life, when determining our overall happiness level?  

In our so-called modernity, we've grown to place an overwhelming amount of importance on our ability to create a family environment amongst our friends, as well as on the "individual" lives we create for ourselves.  Despite all of that, when we face rejection, or the possibility of impending heartbreak, in those areas of our lives we find it no where near as daunting as facing it romantically.  Does this mean we subconsciously undervalue these aspects of our lives?  It's incredibly contradictory how we allow these aspects to dominate our daily lives, allocating only a small portion of the twenty-four hours a day we live to romantic notions, but the emotional influence they hold over us is near insignificance.  It's almost as if we have begun to distrust the correlation between the things we believe will bring us success and things we believe will bring us happiness.  

Why cant they be one in the same?  Don't we have the ability to apply the same passionate energy, as we do to another single individual, to ourselves?  We've lost the concept of self-importance out of our need to be loved, our need to be accepted, and our fear of not having those things.  We've placed the fuel to our self-esteem outside of the self, not allowing self love and self-importance to serve that purpose.  We've devalued the idea of being comfortable with ourselves, not allowing it to serve as the primary factor in how we determine our self-esteem or our self-worth.  We've placed our cause of rejection and heartbreak within the hands of others.  In doing so we've lost control of our own emotional well-being and we're forced to suffer such heartbreak in order to relearn how to love ourselves. 

Lost in dependency.

What does it mean to be dependent?  It is defined as "the state of relying on or being controlled by someone or something else."  It involves aspects of vulnerability and trust.  You have to be willing to let yourself go completely, open up all of yourself to someone, in order to allow yourself to be "dependent."  Society dictates to us that at some point or other, in our lives, creating some sort of dependency is necessary to feel fulfilled.  We are led to believe that forming reliant relationships upon others, whether platonic or romantic, will lead us to happiness.  What no one tells is us that this notion is a difficult one to grasp.  

How are we supposed to give others the benefit of the doubt?  How are we supposed to deposit one hundred percent of our trust, in someone else, from the get go?  Aren't people supposed to gain our trust, isn't that something that needs to be earned?  How are we supposed to know whether or not someone is trustworthy?  How is this supposed to be possible when, as adults, we often feel continually disappointed and let down by those in our lives?  How, when we've been betrayed in the past are we supposed to be willing to let our guard down around the new beings that come into our lives?  

How are we expected to do these things when we know we could end up hurt, again?

Allowing ourself to operate in such a manner that forces us to trust, create need, and implied dependency is frightening.  Why isn't it acceptable to operate solely as a lone wolf?  Why have we created such a need for exterior validation, formed through said trust, to enforce notions of happiness?  Since when hasn't it been enough to just be comfortable with ourselves as a means of creating this inner utopia, where we only need to be dependent upon our individual capacity?  We've grown to require this, often, frustrating dependency upon others to function coherently.  Why? I don't know.  How to fix, or grow out of, it? I don't know.  All I know is that this conceived lack of self-comfortability, and self-dependence, is terrifying and I want out.  All I want, again, is to trust myself, to be comfortable with myself, to depend on myself, and to find happiness - within myself.

I am...

I'm incapable of vulnerability, but I'm an open book.

I'm insecure, but I'm cockily confident.

I'm not conceited, but I'm too proud.

I'm tolerant, but I'm easily irritable.

I'm demanding, but I'm low maintenance. 

I'm headstrong to a fault, but I'm able of concession. 

I'm outwardly emotionless, but I'm inwardly sensitive.

I'm not a believer in love, but I'm a hopeless romantic.

I'm not overtly religious, but I have faith.

I'm honest and straightforward, but I actively avoid truths.

I'm desperate for the future, but I'm haunted by my past.

I'm a social butterfly, but I'm a lone wolf.

I'm full of worry and pain, but I'm momentarily carefree.

I'm lacking in focus, but I'm endlessly passionate.

I'm a product of countless disappointments, but I believe in goodness.

I'm cynical and pessimistic, but I'm hopeful.

I'm perpetually jaded, but I'm full of youthful exuberance.

I don't know who I am, but I like to think I might.  At 22 though, who really has any idea of who they are.  I hate the idea that college is the place where we're expected to "find ourselves," the period of time where we're supposed to figure it all out.  I spent all my years in college searching for myself.  The convoluted structure I maintained before college put such limitations on my ability to soul-search, that once I started I didn't really know where to begin.  I was an athlete, I had a complicated family dynamic, and I didn't know how to open up to anyone.  

Upon moving to Los Angeles and beginning the chapter in my life labeled as "the college years," I was no longer competing, my family had split apart, and I learned to open up - though only to a select few.  My life had suddenly changed in such a drastic way that everything I thought I knew about myself suddenly disappeared and I was left longing for some self-validation.  All I wanted was to know myself and all I felt was lost.  People, in their attempts of reassurance, kept telling me that college was the time I would pick up the pieces, develop new passions, and figure out my dreams, but what I remained ignorant of is that passions and dreams are ever-changing and in constant need of revisal.  Every day the things I want and feel could be different.  Every day I am a new person.  Never am I going to be the same as I was yesterday, nor will I be the same tomorrow as I am today.

I'm a walking oxymoron, but I make perfect sense.

I'm a work in progress.

I'm unfinished. 

enforced influence.

The dynamics of relationships, no matter the nature, are truly astounding at times.  With the age of technology and the continual accessibility we grant, of ourselves, to others we have grown to allow these, often, intrusive methods of communication to control our lives, the way we interpret words and actions, and affect the ever-changing dynamic of the relationships we form with people.  The most alarming realization is that we are forced to question whether or not such dynamics are truly shifting or if it is, merely, our interpretation driving the unbalance we may feel.  We view the unwavering bond most have with their various devices as  nothing unusual, but it seems as though we have begun to value such bonds over those we form with the people in our lives.  We argue that these things are necessary because they grant us this accessibility and the opportunity to keep in contact with a growing number of people from various stages in our lives.  Our devices allow us to expand our theoretical "circle," but as we increase, socially, in quantity do we concurrently decrease in quality?  Knowing that any person is a simple five second text or g-chat message away has become the silver lining on the advancements we've made as a society.  We take for granted the actual time we spend with people, our relationships become increasingly scrutinized and superficial, and we begin to undervalue those around us.  We've slowly come to replace the, what we thought were, life-altering bonds we made with our peers during our youth with poorly constructed, almost foundation-less relationships with people with whom we never truly make the effort to understand and know - without ever acknowledging the difference in true value these opposing forms of relationships may add to our lives.  Because of this we carry the weight of our "friends' " words and actions so heavily that we often allow them to drive the path of our relationships.  We often invent and imagine these shifts in relationship dynamics out of our induced need to be connected to someone, or something, at all times.  While we are constantly striving to build a strong foundation with these people, upon which we hope to create a genuinely meaningful bond, we never truly afford ourselves this opportunity as our relationships remain disconnectedly connected.  Albeit an oxymoron, we are now innately bred to keep ourselves at a safe distance emotionally, no matter the expectations that accompany the various types of relationships we will form, out of our fear of being vulnerable or getting hurt.

to be reliable is to be...

To be reliable, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is to be "consistently good in quality or performance" or having the ability "to be trusted."  Separating the two definitions, one could easily assess the first as being the more straightforward of the two.  To be "consistently good in quality or performance" one must demand the qualities of patience, tenacity, and passion from oneself.  The list of virtues is endless, but the true test of reliability, here, lies within the individual.  The true test is not of outwards reliability, whether or not said individual can perform upon demand, but of inwards reliability, whether or not said individual can dedicate - and rely - on his or herself in such a pressurized manner that others will, eventually, be comfortable in attributing such a quality to them.

Unlike the internal struggle the first definition represents, having the ability "to be trusted" is an issue of outwards reliability.  Though it is up to the individual to portray his or herself in a way that deems them accessible and trustworthy, they do so out of the selfish need to appear reliable to others - the need to securely know that they are "good."  Obtaining someones trust is the equivalent of being handed the key to unlocking someone's soul, it is a precious commodity and the slightest betrayal can forever take away that key and lock you out.  Once the art of appearing to be outwardly reliable is perfected one must tread carefully, as trust granted in one direction unknowingly grants that same trust to be built in the opposite - effectually causing any sort of betrayal to be larger in magnitude, as two souls will get burned rather than one.

The concepts of reliability and trust are tricky as many are terrified of the repercussions they may face should they place their faith with the "wrong" person, confirming the fear-based operating manner which most contrive their decisions from.  One shouldn't be fearful of repercussions, no matter their nature, because without such cause and effect life wouldn't really be worth living.  Being reliable and relying on others are factors of life which we cannot live without, because if we were to attempt to we would be left with nothing.  We would have no one to share the joy we encounter, no one to find comfort in when life slaps us in the face, and no one next to whom we can, merely, exist.  Reliability simply adds a fascinating level of intricacy to our daily lives, without which we would be bored, without which we would not truly experience anything as it is in our nature to be trusting, to rely.

the status quo.

As children, we're told to make the most out of our lives - but what does that really mean? We're encouraged to develop our passions and pursue our dreams, but as we grow we come to realize that passion, often, doesn't bring stability and that our dreams are not always tangible. As children our actions are formed by our curiosity and our emotions, we believe that it is possible for everyone to be happy - as we know no better. As adults our motivations shift, we operate out of fear - scared that who we are, what we do, or how we love wont, ever, be enough. We desperately seek the approval of our peers, start to think that happiness can be bought, and believe that money is the most important driving factor in our lives. Tirelessly, we will embark on our journey through adulthood attempting to satisfy all the societal expectations and pressure we impose on ourselves and others. We'll do things we never thought we would; we will betray, we will deceive, and we will hurt only to later justify our means with our ends. Wouldn't we rather live in a world where compassion and empathy surrounds us, where integrity is still valued, and our character - as society views it - is what defines us? I know I would.

How to be you

The general incapability of the individual to look outside oneself and towards the needs of others, to be selfless, to be considerate, and to be compassionate is a disheartening realization that once realized will rid the self of continual disappointment. Finding the true gems of society is truly an infuriating task, but is also the most fulfilling when you come across people that have such a warm, influential, and profound effect on your life. They serve as the inspiration to live an extraordinary life - filled with the joys of travel, unbelievable shenanigans, passionate endeavors, and pushing your own boundaries further than you ever believed that you could - they are the foundation upon which you find and know yourself.