Is Generation X Fighting Professional Adulthood?

11.01.12 | 10 notes | generation XJeff GordinierHIVentrepreneurshipnirvanakurt cobainthe beatles

Maybe the luxury of choice in one’s career led to the creation if a few generations that are forever searching, for with no promise of a gold watch, we just kept searching because we were allowed to be lost. Being lost does not = immaturity. I think only those that are the sole provider or craved stability over fulfillment have had a laser focus on what they wanted professionally. For those without kids, there was no reason to deal with the bureaucracy and minutia of a consistent, respectable career path. In a way  transitions are the best and worst times in life because they give one license to indulge in a chaotic, temporarily aimless existence. The real question I keep coming back to is, are we expecting too much to want both a paycheck and occasionally, professional fulfillment? Or, maybe, it’s none of the above. Maybe we are just a generation perpetually in transition.

According to Time Magazine, Generation X is “roughly defined as anyone born between 1965 and 1980.”  A few years ago, Jeff Gordinier’s book X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything From Sucking was covered by Time. He ventures that the baby boomers were so vast a generation that they were the “macro” generation that waxed on endlessly about their accomplishments and admirations, from The Beatles to Woodstock. Then things changes and instead of free love, the article goes, Gen X, the “micro” generation, got HIV. Instead of The Beatles, we got both Nirvana and Britney Spears. Gen X, he alleges, is making great strides, but just doesn’t have the need to broadcast it. What the video of Gordinier doesn’t cover (perhaps his book does though) is the change in gender norms, work-life balance, and household income VS. inflation. Many women I know wouldn’t have debates and mentally beat themselves up for occasionally yelling at their kids or not being around enough if one income per household were still enough to pay the mortgage and if they truly had choices. 

Still, one could argue women and most people today have far more liberties than prior generations. If so, could that be the problem? Do we have too many options?

Click here to watch Gordinier’s video promo on the book and his take on Gen X.