Blog Layout
Are You A Oak Tree Or A Mushroom?
Dymond Phillips • Jun 17, 2019
Hey hey I know by the title you may be confused but let me explain. All weekend I've been reading so much about how millennials think in comparison to baby boomers. It's a known fact that the millennial generation is known as the impatient generation. The assumption is that everything millennials do is for instant gratification. They're stereotyped as entitled. Millennials have had access to more technology than any other generation. If you want to shop, order something on amazon get it the next day. If you want to watch a movie, go online, you don't even have to wait for a movie time. Honestly, we don't have to wait weeks to watch TV shows, we can binge watch seasons via Netflix or Hulu. Everything with millennials is so fast paced. Everything millennials want they can have instantaneously, EXCEPT job satisfaction and success.
Being used to get anything you want quickly is a gift and a curse. Honestly it's hard for some millennials to grasp the concept of consistently putting in hard work and over time getting the success. Having social media and being able to see peoples "success" makes some people think it comes easy with no effort. What millennials have to realize is that what you see on social media is a snapshot into somebody's life. You don't see the work they may have put in for years to get where they are now. We, as millennials, have to stop trying to compare ourselves to what we see on the gram. Just because you see one picture doesn't mean that the person is truly successful, they could be staging a photo. With job satisfaction, baby boomers came from a different era. During that time, they would work a job they liked or disliked for years on years and retire from that same job. Now, times are completely different. We as millennial have learned, working somewhere we hate, is no longer a option. Millennials are known as the job hopping generation. If we aren't happy at work, we leave. If our boss pisses us off, we leave. Personally, I don't see a problem with leaving a position that we desperately hate. However, there is a problem when we are being a bad employee and the management team does their job, and we feel like they're "acting funny" so we quit. Sometimes, I have to check myself to see if I'm acting on facts or feelings. "REMEMBER FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS!" (said by millionaire Myleik Teele)
With all that being said being a millennial is tough.We are the generation who have confused admiration with aspiration. We will never find our own happiness until we accept that we can't have anyone else life but our own. You have to achieve your personal greatness, not the greatness you think you want because you see many people on Instagram with it. Carve your own path to fulfill your own greatness. For example, we see so many people being successful entrepreneurs, so we think I'll create a T-shirt line so I can be rich like sound so and so. It won't work for you, then you'd get down on yourself. The reason it didn't work for you is because it wasn't meant for you. The second problem we face as a generation is we give up too soon. A lot of us want the wealth but don't want to put in the work. The hustle stage can last years!!!!!!! If we give up every time something gets hard or we get tired, we won't ever get to the next level. Honestly, we have to understand that we have to put in the WORK. Even if you have a burning passion for it, doesn't make it easy. There will be some things you don't want to do but still have to do. For example, if you love basketball and want to go to the league, you might not want to get up every morning and hit the gym then the basketball court at 5am. But, you do it any way because you don't mind putting in the work to be better.
We as a generation, have to stop trying to mimic the people we look up to. We have to strive to be the best version of ourselves. We see all of these "relationship goals" and think each relationship is supposed to be like Beyonce and Jay-z. That's their reality it won't ever be our reality, but yet we hashtag goals and are missing out on good relationships for what we see. We don't know what Beyonce and Jay-z had to go through to get where they are.
I say all this to ask, are you a mushroom or an oak tree? It takes 6-8 hours to grow a small mushroom, BUT it takes 6-8 years to grow a large oak tree! What are you doing everyday as your daily actions to set up your future? Remember there isn't a secret formula to success, it's a process. Life isn't a sprint, it's a marathon so push through and stop trying to gain instant gratification. When you start to see yourself getting impatient, check yourself. Sometimes I have to unplug from social media it's easy to fall into the comparing stage. We aren't the worse generation, times have just changed. Remember, you can have anything you want, just have to put in the work.
