Avocado Toast

I recently read a rebuttal by a “millenial” to an article written by an Australian non-millenial millionaire having to do with the preferences the younger generation have that keep them from buying homes.  The rebuttal written by Mike Dang was seriously insightful and made me give pause to what I was slowly coming to realise about this “millenial” generation.  As my mind reads, I start with an opinion…who the heck pays for avocado on toast? Make it yourself-pretty easy Kitchen 101, and why spend so much money on coffees from one of America’s biggest coffee retailing stores?  Is it really that much better, or can the order just be rolled off the tongue without serious pondering and study of the menu? So, at first I agreed with the Time article millionaire: what a waste of money-save for the future.  And then…I kept reading…Mike Dang’s rebuttal was hitting the mark. The Aussie millionaire is a property developer/real estate man who thought the younger sect should save and buy houses. Well, yeah, you’d think so, but Mr. Dang’s rebuttal had more to do with the statistics and overall budget that much older Americans have been losing.  Apparently, the opinions to the “Avocado Toast” original article have been numerous.

My thoughts still gravitate to make the toast yourself, and am surprised to see it on menus for breakfast.  Granted the once lowly fruit only known for a while to make a dip for chips has now become fashionable, but it also shows that while tradition hangs in there for most of us older folks, the “youngers” are showing us a new way of doing things.  NO, they aren’t always racing to the altar, buying a house with a mortgage, having 2.5 (never understood the 1/2 baby) children, and enjoying life in their retirement.  Working hard hasn’t changed, they do work hard as there is no guarantee when they graduate college there is a job waiting, they have to go on with their education, furthering huge college debts that in all reality will never fully get paid back in their lifetime and they continually have to be on the cutting edge of the new technology-be it social media or computer software.  Actually, most people do nowadays if they want any sort of job. It’s a much tougher world out there. And wasn’t it we as the parents who had their schedules fully booked with music, sports, social and religious organisations so much so that each child had a different color on the calendar so we would know who went where and when?  We ran them and scheduled them and now they are still running and doing as much as possible, but thank goodness, finding it within their means to slow down and enjoy.

As far as enjoying your old age? The tradition has shifted more to the “we can afford it now, so why not?” Maybe it’s instant gratification, but the way the world is changing, countries, towns and cities may not be available to see.  In our old age things hurt more, we maybe have saved enough for retirement but  we have become the sandwich generation taking care of the previous and sometimes our kids, who have to move back home for various reasons and quite possibly the generation beyond-the Grand-kids, and time may slip away.  Why wait to enjoy, time and money may not be as available as we thought.

I applaud those who are enjoying life now, seeing the world, not buying houses and continuing the financial strap we of the Baby Boomers have known. While one of my offspring has gone a bit traditional, I doubt they will buy another house again and my other two have said easily…”I don’t think I want that kind of responsibility” or “I don’t think it’s in the cards for me anytime soon.”  Maybe it’s the feeling of living in a city, where quite easily rents and apartments allow a different freedom of lifestyle.

I applaud the inventions that have been employed, invented for multi-generations, for example e-mail, Facebook, Face-time, Instagram, Square Space and all those things that based on what DH and his techno-nerds developed with hard and software.  It’s the imagination and forward thinking that we can all embrace.  I work with some folk much younger than me and yes while they can manipulate their electronic devices at the speed of a nano second, they know an amazing amount of information..they love all genre of music-it blasts whatever and I love when it is and we all sing along and would dance too but the kitchen is too small.  They are interested in socializing, social justice and injustice, the latest food fads, news and even though having graduated with degrees in Music and Molecular Engineering, they are happy with what they are doing which is perhaps not all consuming from their educational degree, but seem so alive. It’s really enjoyable to be with them.

I will miss seeing, and participating in what is developed when I am gone, but I feel confident that from the new ideas and the future generations, traditional ways may be bucked, and while new is scary, we can comfortably feel the two are intertwined maybe not just as we might have liked but certainly with the stability we hope is passed on for the future.