Realtime instant life satisfaction with free 2 day shipping

AKA How to fail at life.

I don’t want this to read like yet another shit-on-millennials blog post; I’ve met ineffective, lazy and underperforming people across multiple generations. To me, it comes down to one thing:

                                        Long Term Planning.

If you suck at it, you’re going to suck at everything you do.

We life in a reckless #yolo culture. Everyone is conditioned to expect instant gratification, fast food, free 2 day prime shipping, realtime status updates and non-stop entertainment to fulfill a no-attention-span lifestyle.

So they expect constant praise for anything that goes well and zero criticism for anything that goes wrong because “hey that’s ancient history, why are you bringing it up and treating me like a child?” Spend every dollar they make (and then some), as fast as they make it, not for a moment contemplating whether it’s going to keep coming. The feeling of need and desire is primary and secondary, everything else be damned.

And as a topper, courtesy of a college professor that one of our employees overpaid for terrible life advice:

“When you get a job, and trust me people will be fighting to hire you, expect a raise quickly after you’re hired. If you haven’t gotten a raise or promotion in the first 6 months, leave.”

Le sigh.

Learn to separate career and consumerism

Things you expect from Amazon, you cannot expect from life. There are many people that will take advantage of you if you choose to ignore that: credit cards, instant loans, get rich quick schemes, coaches, toolkits.

Take a deep breath. Nothing I’ve ever done, nothing any of the folks I’ve ever met that made something of themselves, happened overnight.

Take a step back. You need stuff. Yeah, me too. Ever wonder how seemingly the whole rest of the world makes it by with a tiny fraction of things we take for granted here? And how they manage to be happy? If you’re by some miracle lucky enough to have $1 that you haven’t spent yet, contemplate how badly you need something by having it in your pocket for a week – month and see if at the end of it you’re still in a dire need of whatever impulsive crap you thought would change your life so much.

Take a look at your plan. Often. I’ve seen so many people, good and smart people, screw themselves by not thinking where they needed to be 1/5/10 years out. Our needs change hour by hour, day by day: but what really drives us and gives us meaning isn’t an empty quick fix. Unless you’re an alcoholic then by all means have another shot. Otherwise – where are you and where do you need to be? What do you see yourself as when you grow up?

This applies to everyone – regardless of age – and it’s been true forever.