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“The M-Word” – The [Biggest] Problem with Projected Narcissism

May 5, 2016 Eric Stewart

The "m" word

It bothers me. A lot. What seems like a coy label is wreaking havoc on our society. It’s subtle, but wow is it present. Although the word itself is damaging in its own right, it’s how the media and how “experts” brand it about like they’ve hit a 21st century gold rush.

Millennials.

Believe me, I’m self aware of the year I was born in. I also know that society groups humanity into arbitrary categories and calls them generations. But what I don’t understand is why, as a “millennial,” it is so important that I am “understood.”

The Atlantic has told me I am either the greatest generation or the most narcissistic. Secretly, I think they’re hoping for the latter. Makes for better news. But am I really that narcissistic?

News outlets flood the Internet with articles about us “millennials.” Business Insider wrote about “what millennials love and hate,” Harvard Business Review wrote, “what millennials want from work,” and Universum even did a piece entitled, “millennials: understanding a misunderstood generation.” Color me misunderstood because I never thought I was that difficult to understand. The fact there is even a hardcover book all about people my age astounds me.

Going one ring deeper into this circus of information you’ll find an organization called Millennial Mindset, who’s operating business goal is to help you understand how millennials think and act. Take a moment and think about just how remarkable that statement is. Businesses and media outlets have turned my generation into some sort of science experiment. I hate to be the first to break it to everyone, but millennials are not one giant ant farm you can watch with a magnifying glass. You can’t press your eye up to the glass and pretend you know what’s going on in my head – let alone an entire generation.

There are approximately 75 million people who fall into the “millennial” generation. Just shy of one quarter of the US population. People. That’s exactly what all these experts have forgotten. We’re all people – and we all have different interests, hopes and dreams, we all have different ways we want to succeed. How can someone possibly believe, without making wild generalizations, they know what roughly the population of Germany wants out of life?

I’ll be the first to tell you, I haven’t quite figured it out yet. And I’m not in bad company. Famous film producer Baz Luhrmann said, “Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. Some of the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they want to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 years olds still don’t.”

Differing visions of the future shouldn’t scare anyone, but it does. Age shouldn’t scare anyone, but it does. I was told of an organization where they took an old nurses station in the building and turned it into a room designated for the young interns at the company. A place that is colloquially known throughout the company as “the nursery.” A cute play-on-words, yes, but there is something far more sinister at play.

Because of age, people like me are treated prejudicially by discriminatory behavior and it is a repugnant approach to handling 75 million people. And I’m not the only one who thinks this way, author John Green recently wrote an article why the word millennial makes me cringe, about how with this label comes the patronizing of an entire generation of Americans.

Time Magazine has even labeled me part of the “me me me generation.” They called me lazy, entitled, and narcissistic (again). Perhaps the problem isn’t the millennial. Perhaps the problem is how millennials are being treated by everyone else. As a human being, not a millennial, I want to belong to something bigger than me. I want to contribute to something great. I want to have purpose. Doesn’t everyone?

Stephen Colbert in his UVA commencement speech joked, “All that’s left for you [millennials] is unpaid internships, Monday to Tuesday mail delivery, and now thanks to global warming, a semester at sea will mean sailing the coast of Ohio.” It’s no wonder my generation is seen as being narcissistic when opportunities are both competitive and scarce. However, the striking message of Colbert’s speech was when he urged graduates, “To always make the path for yourself,” and paraphrased Robert Bolt by saying, “Society has no more idea of what you are than you do.”

I, and many others my age are carving out our own path. There is nothing to misunderstand there. If you want to understand us, then you must first stop treating my generation like a statistic, and absolutely stop treating us like a label. We want respect, affirmation, relationships, and surprisingly, even money. My simple ask is we drop the M-Word, and we begin seeing everyone as individuals.

Unique people with unique motivators.

TOPICS: Employee Engagement