Who Gave the Best Advice?

When I saw people arguing over which generation was the weakest on Twitter, I actually laughed because I thought it was a joke. It was not. The Zoomers and Gen A were get the brunt of the meanness. Two things on that. First, Gen A is at most 11 years old. They are still presently being born. We have no idea who they will be. Second, I would never pick a battle with a Zoomer on social media. As I was reading the comments, I thought back to the teenager who posted a picture of her family with names breaking into the Capitol. You don't pick a fight with a Zoomer on social media; they are better at it.

I come from a household where my parents are Boomers, my older sibling is Gen X, and I'm a Millennial. Would I want to be a Boomer? No. I get called "aggressive" now for having an opinion and standing behind it. I can't imagine that it would have worked out better for me if I had been alive at a time where women married younger and less women even had the chance at a college education. Many Boomers lost a lot of their retirement in the recession following 9/11. I graduated from college during the post 9/11 recession; it wasn't a great time to be out of college with a student loan clock ticking over my head. And I'm an older Millennial. I had a brick of a cell phone that my parents gave me when I started to drive. I only used it to call them to say I had made it safely. Gratefully, I only had dial up AIM as my social media in high school. The first iteration of Facebook made an appearance when I was a sophomore or junior in college which meant that I had just enough brain cells to not overpost about my feelings or personal life. I am certain nothing good would have come from me having more social media at a younger age. In that regard, I feel for younger Millennials and Zoomers. They don't get a break from the pressure to look happy all of the time. And Gen A? Some of them are being born during a pandemic; others don't know what a regular year of school looks like yet. Every generation has one thing in common. There is never an easy time to be human.

With that said, I do hope you take the time to read the advice of the other generations. As I was reading it, I certainly found pieces of advice from every generation that I thought, "Oh, I need to be better about that or try harder to practice that one." I like a good competition as much as the next person, but there isn't a winner here. More than ever, "we" needs to come before "me," and we have to start listening to each other. There is no way to do that well while believing some generations are weak. With that said, please feel free to add your own piece of advice or comment with what your favorite piece of advice was last week.