Haughty Helena and her hoity-toity hundred-yard dash
A hyphenated, hypothetical dog-and-pony show to win some shiny bric-a-brac.
So, let’s talk about millennials.
Or let’s not. We’re a topic that has been beaten, kicked, and suplexed into submission. No one seems to like millennials, especially millennials.
But, the most telling sign of a millennial — aside from how often we say the word millennial (we’re at 5 times in 5 sentences already) —is our tenacity in making everything about ourselves. They are the most self-centered, yet often painfully self-aware group I’ve had the pleasure of being born into.
There is no shame in pride and there has always been a fine line between conceit and confidence, but we’ve changed it to funambulating between feigned depression and overacted bravado. Things are either the absolute best, or the absolute worst.
It’s a strange dissonance to be equal parts self-loathing, equal parts cocky-as-all-hell: we hate what we’ve become, but particularly hate others doing the same. How do we rectify this? Take a year off in a foreign country to find yourself?
And with that flawless segue, I’ll talk briefly about my year abroad:
For those of you that don’t know me — which is impossible because I literally force my only reader to read my posts — I made the uninformed, yet determined decision to teach in South Korea for a year after graduation.
It was a weird sensation being plunged into a foreign land, leaving my friends behind. I tried to convince myself that this could be permanent, that I would discover what it was that made me tick. Teaching abroad had sincerely been my only pursuit since the beginning of my college career — I long since given up on the arts, and was stuck at an impasse of either sticking it out for a soulless corporate job or becoming a vagabond with a beard of gold, biking through the world.
Upon arrival in South Korea, after days of “goodbye” and “see you never,” I had to ask myself: is this for good? Was teaching my career path? Would I open up my own tutoring studio as many foreigners are wont to do? Would a talent agency scout me out and make me into a pop star?
Sadly, the latter ended up being the most realistic choice — I quickly discovered that I didn’t have the sternness to discipline children (my co-teacher was always the bad cop) nor the know-how to survive on my own. I’m an Orange County millenial: we don’t have any life skills besides finding a way to complain about everything.
I ended up feeling like my trip abroad was just to prove that I could do it, rather than a fact-finding mission for my life. That is to say, I didn’t spend as much time as I thought I would meditating in the mountains or writing poetry in a bamboo forest. After several months, it was obvious that I had tricked myself into believing it was permanent so I wouldn’t realize my travels were just a stall tactic. This isn’t necessarily true for all expats, but I subconsciously knew it wasn’t something I could pursue indefinitely.
Where did that leave me? I had only planned to get to Korea and then after that it was a toss-up. Career-wise, I hadn’t made any decisions on what I wanted to do, and self-wise…all I learned was that I am capable of eating the same dish for weeks at a time without getting tired of it (samgyupsal, rice, and bokchoy, in case you’re wondering).
There are certainly several unforgettable people and moments that would do better on a full-on travel blog — maybe in the future — but the gist of it was that it was as cliche as realizing that “you can’t run away from yourself.”
Coming back to the states was an even stranger sensation than arriving in Korea. There was definitely a case of reverse culture shock: being able to read the street signs, shopping at a Ralph’s, driving my own car, and best of all, talking to my friends within the same time zone. The most disconcerting change for me, though, was how very little things had changed, but still definitely had.
Some of my friends had graduated, some had split up, some had gotten together, and some had moved. For whatever reason, I thought that everything would stagnate until I came back. The world, surprisingly, did not revolve around me, and it did not wait. It wasn’t until I returned to America that I started to regret my decisions to both leave for Korea and to return from Korea.
It was also unnerving to come back without any plans in mind; I was unemployed for the first time in years once I landed. It became clear that I should’ve either stayed in America to find something permanent (now all my peers were a year ahead in their careers, some more than that due to internships I avoided, knowing I would instead be traveling), or stayed in Korea to avoid the crisis of living at home with my parents again.
Expats are quick to show off the highlights of their time abroad — but they’re much less eager to confront the grungy reality of unemployment with no usable work experience (unless you intended to go into teaching). Without a solid goal, I quickly fell into a malaise and became the most stereotypical millenial of all: a man-child living at home in his mid-20s, yelling at other people on the internet.
It’s been a slow rise out of that slump. Luckily for me, my amazing friends were able to carry me out of unemployment into a steady career — however stunted its growth may be.
Insignificant, the time I spent there, yet entirely life-changing in my mind. That said, the pros ultimately outweigh the cons, and I’m still young and learning, yadda-yadda; at least it makes a good talking point. The Orange County bubble is strong and takes more than that to pop, but I’m trying.
