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Why I am hopping off the ‘bag-a-millennial’ movement

Keyboard warriors must be bored. They all seem to be jumping online to bag millennials. “Millennials spend too much on cafe-served smashed avocado on toast to ever afford their first home. They grew up expecting to get trophies just for participating. They expect Centrelink to fund their beard flowers and vegan thick shakes.” And so the list goes on.

I too have piggy-backed on this movement in times gone by, with three of my own millennial offspring providing fuel aplenty! But today I am hopping off.

Want to know why? Here are the ABC’s.

1. A for Adventurous. Millennials are an adventurous bunch. Feeding on the ideological diet of ‘Follow your dreams’, ‘Live your passion’ and ‘Be the change’, millennials have a real motivation to escape the grid. The norms of the past century have been to ‘Go to school. Get a job. Get married. Buy a house. Have children. Retire. Die.’ Counter-culturally, millennials dream big, ask big, live big and go big with every season of life and age. There is no barrier to them reinventing how the ‘school-job-family’ gig plays out. Uncomfortable, yes, but potentially powerful too.

2. B for Benevolent. The Aussie catch cry of ‘My Shout’ at the local pub on a Friday night has evolved into a brand of social, ethical and humanitarian benevolence amongst millennials. Personally, I know a kid from when he was in primary school, Cam Greenwood, who is now the philanthropic entrepreneur behind MonstaSurf.com. Just one example of a young Aussie millennial whom, if you cut open, bleeds benevolence. Ageing companies throw loose change at token charity for public relations and tax benefits. But millennials? Social awareness is ingrained in their consciousness, and when honed productively, they think up solutions that serve people who are most in need.

3. C for Creative. With information at their fingertips, millennials get to live globally and locally at the same time. Infinite stimuli to the right side of their brain fire up neural pathways within their cerebral cores. The result? Creative, adaptive, agile millennials who have the ability to generate alternative solutions to problems around them. They may not sit as told on a rocking boat, but it’s a millennial I would rather have in my boat if I were ever stuck out at sea.

For these reasons, I am officially OFF the ‘bag-a-millennial’ movement, smashed avocado toasts and all that come with it.

Marty Kutschker has observed and studied the millennials species at close range in their natural environment for twenty two years. He is a high school teacher, motivational speaker, family man and director of a Melbourne-based education consultancy firm. He is the creator behind Money Hunt, an outdoor adventure game that gets the brain firing and the body moving on a hunt for hidden money. Money Hunt will launch on February 19 at the Melbourne CBD.

 

 

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