Generation Meh

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  • How To Skip The Guilt And Just Say No: A Tutorial

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    Photo by cheerfulmonk

    According to my parents, I spend a significant chunk of my toddlerhood refusing to utter the word yes under any circumstance. Okay and maybe were apparently cool, but yes was off the table. Evidently, the stubbornness kicked in right out of the womb.  Maybe this early experiment in opting out is why I have very little guilt about saying no in the present.  I have noticed, however, that I’m rather an anomaly in that regard and that ixnaying doesn’t come quite so easily to many folks. As in the case of asserting yourself, it gets easier the more you do it and I’m more than happy to offer y’all a little nudge in the right direction.

    How To Say No And Skip The Guilt

    Put the no in context

    There are a lot fewer obligatory yeses in the world than you think, especially if you throw away social convention and any investment in human relationships.  But assuming you don’t want to alienate friends, family and the folks who sign your pay check, that still doesn’t mean you have to agree to every request or offer that comes your way. Think about the big picture consequences of refusing. Is it a deal breaker or a drop in the bucket?  Bailing on working overtime on a big project that means the difference between your employer staying in the black or not might be akin to signing your own pink slip, but will your best friend since third grade cut off contact if you take a pass on a Saturday afternoon matinee? Doubtful. Keep things in perspective.

    Value your own comfort and happiness

    Looking out for your own needs is not selfish. There’s nothing wrong with preferring to hang out at home in your pajamas eating s’mores instead of attending a coworker’s son’s Christmas pageant. Opting to do so doesn’t make you a bad person. Neither does running a quick cost-benefit analysis of requests you receive and/or asking yourself if the person would say yes to you if the roles were reversed. If they feel that they unequivocally would, then you may choose to sack up and do likewise, but if you have doubts about their follow-through, that should ease your mind about declining. And guess what? People (at least those of the well-adjusted adult variety) do not expect every request or invitation to be accepted. Saying no will not crush them. Your guilt over opting out should be just like their disappointment at your refusal – fleeting.

    Be respectful, but not apologetic

    If you know upfront that you’re not interested or can’t accommodate, don’t leave your no until the last minute. Don’t say yes now and then try to figure out how to weasel your way out later. People much prefer an initial no to an eleventh-hour flakeout, especially if they’ve made plans based around your initial acquiescence. Don’t make up an elaborate excuse or apologize effusively (unless you really do have to bail at the last minute for factors beyond your immediate control).  Be polite and be brief. If your no is circumstantial, by all means suggest an alternate plan for the future – I can’t make it on Tuesday, but I’m free next Wednesday. Or if you know someone better suited to saying yes, you could opt to point the asker in their direction.

    Two caveats:

    Learning to figure out the difference between valuing your comfort and indulging your laziness is key. Sometimes, you have to power through your own inertia or repress your own reclusive tendencies to ward off a knee-jerk no. Prioritize the long-term benefit over the short-term inconvenience. Sure, you might feel dead on your feet at the end of the day, but if you know you’d really enjoy the concert once you actually got to the club or made it through cross-town traffic to catch your favorite author at a book signing, then it’s worth the initial pain. Sometimes, I can rationalize myself into action and other times I have to resort to bribery in the form of coconut milk ice cream. Whatever works, folks.

    Expect others to value their own comfort and happiness, too. Believe it or not, this may include saying no to you. Try to extend them the same graciousness you’d want for yourself.

  • Of Monsters and Millennials: Why Gen Y and Zombies Are A Perfect Match

    Because I say so, bien sur. Also,  Zombieland? Kinda made of awesome.

  • The World According to Edward Said

    Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.

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    Photo by Pikaluk

    We are most profoundly intimidated (whether that takes the form of fear, hostility, envy or skepticism) by the people we aren’t and the things/qualities we don’t possess. It’s the big bad other that knots up our stomachs, raises our hackles (and the hair on the back of our necks) and keeps us tossing and turning at night.

    Ponder on that, kiddos. Your homework is a 300 -500 word essay on the applicability of this knowledge to your own life. Papers due on my desk during homeroom on Wednesday morning.

    Class dismissed!

    *Credit to NS for making a comparison that set off the train of thought that, seven or eight degrees later, led to this post.

  • Just In Case I Decide To Start Being Less Autocratic


    Should Generation Meh posts be open for comments?(opinion)

  • Before The Snow Flies

    2078853250_f13452f546Photo by phrenologist

    It feels as if I’m on a deadline lately. Not work-related (although, I do have one of those looming), but seasonal. Everyone I know is going through the same thing – feeling tired, foot-draggingly worn-out, staring out the window at the cold and the grey (which is only going to get colder and greyer). I feel as if there are a million and one things I have to accomplish before winter sets in for reals, but I’m not exactly sure what these things are (building up a store of acorns? staking out a tree under which to hibernate?). Just things, stuff, goals (all nebulous, natch) that I feel as though I ought to check off my mental list before the calendar runs out. Before all I want to do is curl up on the couch under a quilt, which I don’t own (must rectify that) in front of the fireplace I don’t have (sensing a theme?) and drink tea and listen to the Great Lake Swimmers’ Moving Pictures, Silent Films until spring shows up again.

    Spring is for hoping and planning. Summer is for frolicking. Autumn is for introspection and executing ideas. And winter? Winter is for simply enduring. Winter is for being melancholy*.

    Oh man, I really need to move somewhere less frigid and existential angst-inducing, yes?

    * Last year,  it was also for slogging around eastern Europe and walking miles and miles a day in the face of a never-ending bus strike. This year, it will also be for moving and new jobing (one hopes). But not skating. Never again.

  • A Lonely Luddite

    New W&W post. Social media ain’t the second coming. Sometimes, I feel like the only one who sees that. Well, aside from the 76% of you reading this who have no clue what the heck social media is in the first place. Fist bumps all around!

  • Generation Manifesto

    The need for a GenMeh manifesto (or mehnifesto if you prefer) has been on my mind almost from the inception of this project. I knew how I felt, knew how the people I'd shared this idea with felt and knew the vision I wanted to share with you. All that was missing were the words themselves, the burst of  passion needed to spill them out and the pedantic mood needed to arrange them into a coherent platform. I was content to bide my time, because I knew that eventually the perfect storm of motivation and meticulousness would hit. It did. That was last Wednesday while trying to fall asleep and this is the end result.

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    Photo by hebedesign

    I am so damn sick of the corporate, political and social cult of the middle-aged white man. And I’m so damn sad for the cult of the aspiring, future middle-aged white men (of which there are plenty of female members too, FYI). And I can’t stand reading one more well-meaning screed from one more earnest, bright-eyed 24 year-old who pontificates about hustling and getting ahead and marketing one’s self and networking and personal branding (especially ones who truly believe that they're being innovative and iconoclastic with their hackneyed how-tos). I cannot do it. Because, you know what, folks? You can follow all of this advice, you can read every career manual, you can plunk down big bucks to see Tony Robbins, you can even sew your own damn parachute in whatever color you’d like, but it won’t make you happen.  And it’s never going to make you truly content. Never, never, never. NEVER. It’s smoke and mirrors and lies and 30+ years of devoting your energy and creativity and personal investment to a thing, a process, an institution that will never love you back, will never acknowledge your sacrifices, will never give you pride of ownership, will never reward you in any form beyond that of  your pay check. And there is no point on the ladder high enough that reaching it will negate this feeling. It won’t happen when you get your own office, your own executive assistant, a $10 000 raise, the title of VP of International Operations, a write-up in Forbes. It will never be enough. And you will never arrive. But don’t take my word for it, give it a shot. Dive head long down the rabbit hole after that carrot on a stick and then give me a call from the Island of Personal Fulfillment where you spend your yearly five-week vacation. Hell, you can even call me collect. That’s how sure I am that I’m right.

    I’m not some anarchist/ Marxist/ libertarian/hippy/generic crackpot. Heck, I’m not even a card-carrying member of the “Up with entrepreneurialism! SMEs for all!” club. I’m just sick and tired. Sick and tired of everyone operating under the assumption that this is the way things are and if you disagree or don’t like it, you’re a whiny, entitled misanthrope, instead of an individual with the guts to call BS on the “Life is a hierarchy and money makes the world go round. Get used to it, cupcake.” model of life as we know it, forever and ever, amen. I want to kick down the door, but not so I can seize the power of the corner office for myself, no, I want to kick open the fire exit and make a break for the light. And by God, I want to take you ( yes, you, and you, and even you) with me.

    You can follow all of this advice, you can read every career manual, you can plunk down big bucks to see Tony Robbins, you can even sew your own damn parachute in whatever color you’d like, but it won’t make you happen.  And it’s never going to make you truly content. Never, never, never. NEVER.

    I want us to start working to rule. If we have to be part of the system, I want the system to steal as little of our spirit as possible. I want us to opt out. Opt out of office politics, opt out of gaming the workplace, planning career trajectories, letting ourselves become immersed in the empty language of accountability, customer-facing experience, global supply chains. I’m not taking about dismantling the machine from inside, because frankly, I don’t care about the machine (and it will always find people to keep it running; the illusion of the attainability of the traditional American Dream ain’t gonna fully shatter any time soon, folks). I’m talking about you putting yourself first. Figuring out who you are other than the job title you hold, have held or aspire to. And if you have to start excavating this identity from buried childhood memories or cobbling it together from the ground up, I’m imploring you to do it.  Build a damn tree house if you have to. Go outside and throw a tennis ball against the garage door (or, more realistically, the side of your apartment building) for an hour. Got to the park, find some ducks, feed them. Do whatever it takes to start feeling something. And once you have, once you’ve figured out what joy and happiness and contentment feel like (hint: Your 401K is not involved), I’m imploring you to hold onto these feelings with a white-knuckled tightness. Think about them before you fall asleep at night and wake up to them first thing in the morning. And I’m pleading with you to divorce your person-self from your worker-self. To only give your worker-self as much of your time and energy and focus as is required to do a competent, honest day’s work. And then let him or her go. And let the guilt of “failing to meet your potential” or to “live up to expectations” go. Let it go. These are tricks. And they only work if you let them. They only work if you believe in the hierarchy , believe in the machine and its rightness, its seemingly comforting sense of order, of regularity, of predictability.

    I’m telling you to stop looking for the 9-5 panacea. Stop believing that there exists your soul mate in bullet-point job description form, that you just have to find this one true fit and then all of your angst, your apathy, that achy feeling in the pit of your stomach that you think a promotion or a career change could fix will finally go away.

    There is only the space we make (or don’t make) for ourselves. The identity we create and sustain by living and thinking and connecting outside of the system. This is the most we get and it isn’t even a matter of receiving it, we have to forcibly take it for ourselves. I’m urging you to do just that. Take your energy, your passion, your individuality, your talents and devote them to yourself and the people you choose to share them with. The machine will still be there and it only will take as much (or as little) of yourself as you choose to give it.

    Choose wisely, my friends.

  • Maybe We've Just Got Other Stuff On Our Minds?

    Defending Gen Y against charges of political apathy.

    IOU some mid-week soapboxing, so tune in tomorrow.

  • Warp And Weft

    Psst… if you just can’t get enough of yours truly, you can also find me blogging it up over at True/Slant.  Same irreverent tone as GenMeh, but more topical, soundbyte-y subject matter. One step closer to world domination!

  • How To Cope When Life Kicks You In The Junk: A Tutorial

    Yesterday, I went to a birthday party. The same birthday party (well, the celebrant was a year older this time) I went to on the same weekend last year.  Same people, different presents. Walking back to the bus stop after the festivities, I found myself thinking about everything that’s changed in the last 12 months or so. If my life were a movie, this would be the part where the screen goes all blurry and we fade into a flashback, which would be set to Seasons of Love from RENT ( the Broadway version is better), because it’s my damn dream sequence and that’s just how I roll, okay?  I don’t mind admitting that there has been plenty of unpleasantness to deal with in the last year.  I’ll skip the details*, because A) it’s none of your business and B) I’m not really down with personal pain pissing contests, ya dig? Suffice it to say, lots of stuff sucked (concurrently and sequentially!)  and I was sad/angry/exhausted for a solid few months.  But it wasn’t all doom and gloom.  I also met/reconnected with/befriended some truly awesome folks, had lots of travel adventures, became a first-time aunt and finally started writing again. And as Frost would say, that last point has made all the difference. Eventually, after enough time hanging out against the ropes, I was even ready to get back in the ring for another round.  Oh, Life, you and I do love to spar so!

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    Photo by Stegsie

    And even though ma vie isn’t, at first glance, noticeably improved over what it was at this time last year (in fact, I’m actually about to be unemployed in just about three months), I am so much happier than I was last fall. Happy enough that I’m not even worried about jinxing my contentment by mentioning it in print. Happy enough that I feel duty bound to impart to you the wisdom I’ve gleaned on how to get through the rough spots in one piece. Also known as:

    How to Cope When Life Kicks You In The Junk: A Tutorial

    Feeling better happens when it happens

    Maybe it takes a week, a month, a year.  There is no timeline for getting over pain/ grief/loss/ hurt/ anger/alien abduction etc. and anyone who tries to impose one on you needs to STFU. F’reals. When you’re ready to move on, you will. Forget about trying to schedule or fast-track the process and forget about feeling guilty or pathetic for not bouncing back to your old self as quickly as others think you should.  Give yourself a break and cut out the clock watching.

    Stress and pressure have a shelf life

    As Bill Joel once remarked, “You will come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face and you’ll have to deal with pressure.”  But even though it feels like it in the heat of the moment, pressure isn’t a constant. If you can just white-knuckle it through the sensation of  suffocating  under the weight of the world and keep yourself from committing to any capital D decision while under the influence of adrenaline (no easy feat, I will concede), you’ll find that the pressure eventually eases and you regain enough breathing room to assess things a little more objectively. The situation that seemed so completely dire a few weeks or months ago will have become tolerable enough for you to see that quitting your job and faking your own death is only one of the options at your disposal and not, in fact, your only way out.

    Even when you think you’re not getting better, you actually are

    Sure, at first glance, hanging out on the couch playing Halo or rereading the entire Baby-sitters Club series might seem unproductive and slightly self indulgent, but it absolutely isn’t. You’re not wasting time or regressing back to adolescence, you’re granting your brain and body a break from the heavy lifting of healing and giving them a chance to rest and recharge.

    Reject the one size fits all approach

    Reaching out to supportive friends, taking up a new sport, writing a letter to your dead grandfather; maybe these things will work for you and maybe they won’t. When it comes to dealing with trauma, there’s no checklist of must-do activities and steps to take in order to heal appropriately.  What helps someone else to cope might do nothing for you or even exacerbate the unhappiness.  You don’t fail at feeling better because the conventional wisdom of how to deal with Event A or Situation B holds little appeal or relevance for you. You know yourself better than Dr. Phil does. Go ahead and do it your way; Sinatra and I both have your back.

    *Sorry, BeeZee. I know you wanted gory details. Guess you should have gotten me drunk on gin milkshakes when you had the chance.