The Ashcan

Coping with age, ever so ungracefully

Posted on 20. Aug, 2010 by jessekg in Curiosities, Uncategorized

Oddly enough, when I google “old why guy with pipe”, I also got a pic of

Stephen Harper, and one of Paris Hilton. Photo via

Ah, New York Times, bastion of investigative journalism, defender of human rights, the fourth estate, pillar of a free society, spotter of trends, taster of foods, and of course, constantly perplexed by the age old problem: What is it about 20-somethings?

It’s always funny to see a newspaper, which we all know is run by people who are in their 40s and up, grapple with the problem of youth. “Why are they so different, why won’t they grow up, why won’t they leave home?” they ask as they sip Metamucil™ and squint at the computer screen. “When I was in my 20′s, I worked 44 hours a week for lousy pay so that I could afford a car and a home, and I accepted it because it was a nice way to live. And look at me now, working 44 hours a week for okay pay so that I can afford my home and my car, and I accept it. It’s a nice way to live.”

This highly hypothetical train of thought explains to me why so many articles are penned each and every year trying to explain some wild and crazy youthful trend (refer to: funemployment). Even obsessive navel gazing has been attributed to people in their 20s, but if they are guilty of navel gazing, then the older generation is equally guilty of obsessively gazing at the 20-something navel.

At 30-years-old, I find myself on what is referred to by the Times as, quite simply, the “age 30 deadline.” And it’s true. So true. But I didn’t need an 8,000 word article to tell me that. I’ve been telling myself that for the last 10 years :”Jesse, you don’t need to be rich, you don’t need to be successful, you just need to have some sort of semblance of what the rest of your life is going to look like.” Low standards, yes, which might explain this next quote.

A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

I’m not sure if that number is amplified now that it’s 2010, but I truly hope so because it means I’m right on track. Ya!

And if 20-somethings nowadays are taking even longer to figure their shit out, even better. That means I won’t grow up to have a boss 10 years younger than me. But of course, that’s a massive generalization, as is the Times piece, because there are tons of people who go straight from school to work, just like their parents, and grow up someday to write articles for the New York Times trying to explain 20 year olds. But there are also people who choose to travel, or take unpaid internships, or go back for more school, or to actually pursue something they want to do, rather than just acquiesce to the pressures of parents and the status quo. And what the Times is missing here, in it’s sprawling attempt to make sense of things that, for those of us who have never had to watch a black and white TV, already makes sense, can be easily explained in one paragraph:

We grew up watching our parents work hard so that they could “give us a better life,” as we often heard so much. But “better life” doesn’t necessarily mean more channels on the HDTV, but the freedom to pursue careers that are fulfilling, rewarding, and yes, interesting to us (some pay would be nice too). How many people watched their parents toil away at jobs they couldn’t wait to get out of just to watch their RRSPs evaporate in 2008? It was crushing. So what is it about 20-somethings anyways? They are learning from the mistakes of the generations before them and trying to avoid making the same ones. The 20 to 29th years of our lives are like the last 10 yards of a football game, so rather than settle for the field goal you throw every last play in the book out on the field, from the fake punt to the flea flicker, with some lateral tossing for good measure. Eventually something is going to get you there, and when it does you will have happily experienced as much as possible and will be content to spend the rest of your life with the tried and true play-action. But not until you try everything else at least once. Then you turn 30, and it’s over, and you hope to god some generation of keeners doesn’t come up from behind and leave you in their dust filled with ambition and “yes sirs.”

Actually, if the whole world just regressed 10 years, this wouldn’t even be an issue anymore. Prices could come down because we couldn’t afford them, science would come up with some miracle cure to let women get pregnant much later (it would have to, because we’ve all seen what happens in Children of Men), and it wouldn’t be weird to see a childless single 29-year-old in an unpaid internship at some company they think is “cool.”

Actually, sometime I just wish I could re-do my whole 20s again, right from the start, knowing what I know now (that everyone is a live at home, funemployed slacker) and just hone myself to have some sort of advantage and eventually, inevitably, rule the world. But only if I can do it during my own generation’s time (as in, go back in time, thus not living my 20s in the 2010s). Because if being in my 20s right now means I have to relate to Ke$sha and this douche bag below, T. Mills, then I take it all back.

Music these days. What is it about those 20-somethings anyways?

Tags: featured, new york times, What is it about 20-somethings