Update: I’m Downsizing

I’ll write more about what that means and how I got here, there’s a lot to my story. But I’ll start it here:

I was a good Millennial. I went to college. I studied something I loved. I got a salaried job at a corporate company doing that thing. Then I got another one and moved to the big city for it.

I played the office politics and partied with my coworkers. I ordered in for lunch. I took Ubers home. I cared deeply about the brands I worked for. I believed in the system.

I was a good Millennial.

Then I was shown the door of obsolescence. Not just from one company. From my whole career. And it left me with a lot to think about.

At first, I wondered: how do I get around this? How do I get back in? What do I have to do?

I decided to pivot. To up-skill. To take what I had learned about that system and appeal to it in a different way.

But here’s the thing I just can't shake. That system doesn’t sit well with me anymore. It doesn’t reflect the integrity that built it. It’s become brazen and unabashed towards the people that sustain it. It’s eating away at all of us in little imperceptible ways and also big, hard and scary ways.

What does downsizing mean to a good Millennial who hasn’t earned a paycheck in almost two years?

It means hope and change.
It means shifting my focus to the future.

And I don’t believe that our future belongs to corporate interests. I don’t believe it’s where our energy and time and passions should go anymore.

I believe that we as individuals are the future – on every level. That our choices matter more than we know. That each step we take in our own little lives, helps determine where we go as a whole.

I’m a good Millennial. I still, despite everything, believe to my core in the American Dream. I’m living my own version of it and I see others doing the same everywhere I look.

Self-determination is hard. Building a business from nothing is hard. Holding your head up when the system is kneecapping you is hard. What I’m about to say, for me, is hard. But here goes:

I’m done with the big brands.
I’m done with that dream.
I’m done with that system.

My future is with the brands that don’t exist yet.
The ones getting started because they don’t have the choice not to.
The ones that can take those little steps that lead us all to a better whole.

I’m not worried about being a good Millennial anymore.
I’m focused on being a better one.

Thanks for reading. More soon.

HC