Allow me to rant a little about a topic that is very dear to me. Being young, diligent, and poor. One specific post by Salary.com recently fueled my interest to blog about this and below you’ll see what I mean
There’s something this is lacking.. Maybe it’s that our generation is more reluctant and independent? Many of us have dreams and we’re very driven, but we won’t let the fact that we’re poor bring us down.
One of the ways I can show an example of this is that when a good friend of mine saw that I was making no money, but I still devoted $100+ to my 401k each paycheck, he was impressed.
How though? For one, if you shop right, you can spend $150 for food a month. Staying inside for 3 weeks out of the month can really save up some money. Think about how much money you’re spending on beer, shots, food before and after you’ve went out with your friends, and then think about how much it costs to sit inside a couple extra days a week and enjoy a couple of movies and maybe get a few things done around the apartment/house.
Simply put, we have more options today to keep us occupied. Xbox live, Wii, Playstation, texting, and millions of websites to keep us amused. Our parents didn’t even know what texting was at our age, let alone all of these devices.
Moral of the story and this rant?
With technology growing exponentially, we’re not just going to see a different world, we’re going to see different types of people emerge. If I have kids, I can’t even imagine what they’ll be doing in their teens. Whatever happened to sneaking out, drinking 2 beers with 50 friends in the woods and then talking about that for an entire week at school?
The fact of the matter is, I’m part of the new generation and I can honestly tell each and every person out there to watch out now. If anyone is having a hard time understanding or tolerating us now, you’re in for a world of stress.
To all of the employers out there, if you get an energetic and young employee, go all in, put your money on them and see what happens. You just might be surprised.