Millennials are exhausted by working more for less | Letters
I can understand the disillusionment expressed in Leila Latif’s article (The Soft Life: Why Millennials Are Leaving the Rat Race, April 2). We are conditioned to compete academically and then are transformed into a work world where reality is a painful shock to the system. Many are quickly robbed of our lofty dreams. The lucky few will find truly satisfying work with rewards to match.
It’s easy to work like crazy when you enjoy what you do and are goal-oriented. Working long hours, often unpaid, is an act of altruism that keeps the public sector afloat, as any doctor or teacher will agree. It is much more difficult to maintain this in a role that you do not like, or that does not match your values: dissonance is destructive and the suffering will be your own.
At a recent social event, I was greeted by an old acquaintance with, “What are you doing these days?” The question was intended to elicit professional and material status. Understanding that my actual well-being counted for nothing, my response was polite but appropriately nonsensical. Middle age brings with it keen insight: I set my own standard for performance.
The airplane oxygen mask theory applies: It’s not gentle to take care of yourself, it’s smart. If anything, I’m encouraged that some in the next generation are finally putting themselves first. Giving in to society’s expectations of conventional ambition does not bring happiness; Could exchanging the rat race for an alternative be the answer?
A basic income model could allow people to play to their strengths and use their time for the greater good before market forces take over. But no one would go hungry.
Mona Soed
Southend-on-Sea, Essex
The story of Rose Gardner as a millennial leaving the rat race of the London mortgage career fit right into my dilemma. I’ve just completed a PhD in Macroeconomics and Public Policy from the University of Leeds and get to spend four luxurious years near my family in Yorkshire, living the Yorkshire life with the fresh air and space on my doorstep. But now that I have a PhD and am mid-career with ten years of policy experience, the relevant jobs are all in London.
I am fortunate to have a (relatively) decent wage level, even in the public sector with decades of wage stagnation. This way I can avoid the rabbit hutch-style shared housing that was almost bearable as a sociable 20-something, but would crush my sanity now as a 35-year-old. But do I want to spend the next thirty years working just to pay the mind-boggling mortgage on a small apartment in the Big Smoke?
Living with my parents isn’t ideal, but a part-time job as a barista in a pleasant market town, where no work email penetrates my soul day or night, feels much more conducive to my well-being. Rose’s story makes me think that a trip to the local dog shelter could be the deal breaker.
Dr. Caroline Bentham
Wetherby, West Yorkshire
Your article expresses the overwhelming fatigue of treading water. Millennials have been put in an untenable position, with opponents citing avocado toast and poor work ethic as symptoms of a failing generation. The piece was about those who played the game at an elite level and are exhausted by it. Understandably so.
Most of us are not CEOs or highly paid managers, but the pressure has infiltrated areas other than work. We only have to look at key workers using food banks and falling birth rates. Our generation expected that we could have an honest job and afford to live, but that is simply not the case. We now live in uncertainty and there is no longer any room for risks or mistakes.
‘Soft’ has become shorthand for ‘entitlement’, but what are you entitled to in the expectation that working should provide you with the basic costs of living? Twice I have been homeless while working at full capacity; and my last landlord was legally allowed to increase the rent from £600 per head to £900, without maintenance or material changes to the property.
We are the generation that is told to work more for less, and when we have nothing left to give physically, we are made to feel like we are the problem.
I now work on accessibility, with people who are chronically ill, for whom living softly is not a choice, but a means to stay alive. While a gentler life isn’t available to me right now, I work with people to set those boundaries in work and other spaces. These people are mourning their former selves and I see no right to that. Soft is by no means simple and is often misunderstood.
Lara Marshall
Brighton
I have to say that I don’t think this concept (of a gentle life) is anything new. As a Gen . I got paid a big salary, but I planned it, and without a doubt it was the right choice and I have never regretted this choice.
Creative people have often lived this way. Charles Bukowski wrote his novel Post Office in 1971, which detailed his morning job as a postman, which left him free to write, drink and bet on the horses for the rest of the day. And you also have Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation, heralding an entire movement that has chosen to drop out and join up. I wish millennials would stop thinking their generation invented the wheel.
Emma Durand
Charenton-le-Pont, France
What a beautiful middle-class story. For those of us who did not have all the advantages mentioned in this article, there was no option to quit a hated job and move back into Mom and Dad’s beautiful house. We had to work for 44 years to afford a decent standard of living and a house. For the millions of people who have nothing in this country, this article is unambitious – it is irrelevant and insensitive.
Ruth Rosenthal
London
What saddens me about this story about millennials is that it seemed to offer a choice between working hard for money and power or choosing to please yourself – rather than about finding what was truly meaningful and making a valuable contribution to the community. While I have felt truly inspired by meeting smart and capable younger people who have chosen to do things like work the land and grow food sustainably; in “organic arts”; in ecologically responsible construction; or in various forms of education, social or community work.
However, I do recognize that leaving a high-stakes job is an act of courage, and that devoting time to self, art, and family in chosen ways is authentic and rewarding. I wish these millennials the best.
Margaret Turner
Exeter