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donnabroadway · 4 years

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Cut off culture is toxic, fight me

It's that awkward week between Christmas and new years. The one where the world is shut down but it isn't. Everyone is pretty much off this week because of the holiday, winter break, and the need to use up all your PTO before the start of the new year, which means people are bored, antsy, and overstimulated. This is also that time of the year when we discuss our goals for the new year. But instead of wanting to lose weight or get a better job, we're cutting everybody off. According to social media, this generation, millennials, are spending less time with family because we know who is toxic and we're not standing for it. We're not like the older generations, we're going to protect our mental health and cutting off any family member or friend who doesn't respect that because boundaries and protecting our peace. Ok, millennial. And i can say that because I've been there and I'm a millennial.

I've been the person who had the toxic family and I was gonna cut them off and have my peace because I went to therapy and did my work and they were still toxic. While it is great that we are aware of our mental health and we are open to therapy, and suggesting therapy, and we love our new age terms such as narcissist, we must be stopped. We are cheapening and weaponizing therapy and mental health. Stop telling everyone to seek therapy, it's rude and it can ostracize people. And everyone that does something you may or may not like or agree with is not a narcissist. Accountability is not for everyone else, it's for you as well. Just because you've gone to therapy does not mean you've taken accountability. I've gone through a lot of therapists in the past 15 years and i can say that only one has challenged me to look in the mirror to see how I can be different and it's really been helpful. It's easy to hold everyone accountable but what about yourself and before you start, "i shouldn't have accepted that, let that happen, I was too good of a person, or I need to stand up for myself" is not accountability. We all have toxic traits. Even you, "I went to therapy and now I'm cutting you off because you're a narcissist and you lack accountability." Ok. I spent years thinking it was everyone else or particular people until one of those people informed me of how mean and evil I could be. My beliefs about this person, although i felt they were justified because they were rooted in the experiences I had with this person, caused me to be very mean and standoffish. We don't live in a world where everyone is toxic but us and telling people they're toxic and they lack accountability is the quickest way to ensure people are happy you're staying home for the holidays. As the younger generation, we have to ask ourselves if we really want healing or do we want to blow some stuff up and tell people about themselves.

Before I go, let me say this. I'm happy we're challenging the status quo but the hashtag #okboomer is disrespectful because boomers are our grandparents and while they may have messed up a few things, they laid the foundation for us to have a better life through their challenging of the laws and systems of the late 50s, 60s, and 70s. Those protests and challenges have made life a little bit easier for us and while they ultimately became "the man" we can't deny that they changed the world in their hayday.

#okboomer #accountability #therapy #cutoffculture #newyearnewme #2020 #narcissm #cancel culture

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newstfionline · 5 years

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I Took ‘Adulting Classes’ for Millennials

Andrew Zaleski, CityLab, Oct 29, 2018

On the eve of my wife’s 30th birthday--a milestone I, too, will soon hit--she posed a troubling question: Are we adults yet?

We certainly feel that way: We hold our own jobs, pay our own rent, cover our own bills, drive our own cars. Our credit is in order. But we don’t yet own a house and have no children--two markers commonly associated with fully-fledged adulthood (and two markers that both our sets of parents had reached well before they turned 30). And there are other gaps in our maturity: I don’t buy napkins or know how to golf; up until last year, I didn’t know how to change the oil in my car’s engine. Thankfully, last year we managed to throw a dinner party, our first, without burning the pork roast.

A vague anxiety over these known-unknowns is something of a generational hallmark. A Monday-morning scroll through the social media feed of the average 20-something might turn up a handful of friends sharing memes of dogs--looking bewildered, exasperated, or both--unironically captioned with something like: “Don’t make me adult today.”

Yes, Millennials have killed yet another thing. In this case, it’s something so fundamental that it may have seemed unkillable, but apparently isn’t: knowing how to be an adult.

Younger people need not look far on the internet to find popular condemnation from card-carrying grown-ups about our many shortcomings. We are, we are often told, simpering, self-indulgent, immune-to-difficulty know-nothings, overgrown toddlers who commute on children’s toys and demand cucumber water in our workplaces. But in our own social circles, such constructive criticism can be harder to find. Young urbanites tend to pack themselves into specific neighborhoods, cities, and living situations that have relatively fewer older residents. In such communities, knowledge on how to Seamless a meal to the doorstep is a dime a dozen, but first-hand experience in snaking a drain, cooking a meal for four, or operating a manual transmission comes at more of a premium. (To say nothing of the fact that a third of Americans between 18 and 34 are living with their parents.)

Luckily, the rough road to adulthood can be paved with adulting classes. The Adulting Collective, a startup venture out of Portland, Maine, made a big splash about two years ago after national news outlets reported on its in-person events. In its short lifespan, the Collective has offered up lessons, either guided or via online video, in such varied life skills as bike safety, holiday gift-giving for the cash-strapped, putting together a monthly budget, opening a bottle of wine without a corkscrew, and assembling a weekly nutritional plan. Their target audience: “emerging adults,” the massive 93-million-strong demographic group composed of people in their 20s and early 30s.

There are similarly structured programs across the country. At the Brooklyn Brainery, for example, you can take classes on how to run a good meeting or what Seinfeld teaches us about love. Take an online course with the Society of Grownups, sponsored by the insurance company Mass Mutual, and topics will include budgeting and how to deal with student-loan debt.

The sheer banality of many of these courses is their salient quality. They’re teaching stuff that people neither look forward to nor seem to enjoy, but implicitly recognize as part of being a grown-up: paying bills, setting a budget, calling the car insurance company, looking after your health. The joyless, quotidian chores of post-adolescence.

“Adulting is something nobody prepares you for, but you know it when it happens. It’s the unglorified part of being on your own,” says Rebekah Fitzsimmons, assistant director of the writing and communication program at Georgia Tech who taught a class on adulting in the 21st century in 2016.

In a bygone era, the ordinariness traditionally associated with growing the hell up was something few noticed--in the first half of the 20th century, 20-somethings were too busy trying not to die of the Spanish Flu or fighting Hitler to worry too much about what life skills they were failing to develop. That has now been replaced by public displays of what it means to be a self-sufficient human being, Fitzsimmons says. At the intersection of these two competing truths is the cottage industry of adulting, one nurtured by Instagram hashtags and built around how-to classes for hapless Millennials.

Born in 1989, I am a card-carrying member of the oft-derided demographic. How hapless am I? To find out, I signed up for the two action challenges the Adulting Collective offered last fall: one on nutrition and another focused on monthly budgeting. Via email, I received instructions for each of these week-long courses, which had me tackling a new skill or task each day.

When I hit 30, I intend to complete emerging adulthood fully equipped for whatever comes next.

First lesson: Hydrate! Never would I have thought the amount of water I consumed would be a point of instruction. But it turns out that young adults are notoriously poor judges of this particular basic biological need. The crash course in nutrition from the Adulting Collective that arrived in my inbox last fall was titled “Detox Before You Retox,” and it heavily emphasized hangover avoidance. Billed as a way to prepare yourself “before the next happy hour,” the instructions contained multiple steps broken down over five days. Step one: Get your basics in order, like eating your veggies, exercising, and drinking more water.

So one evening I stood in the harsh glow of my kitchen’s overhead fluorescent lighting--pitcher at the ready, glass on the countertop--applying myself to my first adulting lesson. On my smartphone I made a quick calculation: my weight, divided by 2.2, multiplied by my age, divided by 28.3, divided once more by eight. The answer: eight. More precisely, I needed to drink 7.56 cups of water to hit my proper daily intake.

This was only one of the big takeaways I received. I also learned that a morning drink of lemon water and cayenne pepper mixed with said water can help boost my metabolism, apparently. Like the unnecessarily complex hydration formula above, some of this material had the effect of making a heretofore uncomplicated thing more daunting. It was months later it finally dawned on me that a simple Google search could yield a far simpler answer for the number of glasses of water I ought to drink every day.

How did it come to this? Did previous generations have so much trouble mastering the basics?

“In an ideal world, we would all be followed around by this combination of our grandmother and Merlin who would lovingly teach us how to do each and every thing in the world,” says Kelly Williams Brown, author of the 2013 book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps. “In the absence of that, it can be nice to have resources.”

Brown’s book seems to be largely responsible for the meteoric rise of the gerund form of the word (which was short-listed by Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year in 2016). A revised edition of Adulting was published in March. The adulting industry itself is newer. Rachel Weinstein co-founded the Adulting School (now Collective) with Katie Brunelle in fall 2016. (Brunelle has since left the business.)

A professional therapist, Weinstein would sometimes encounter younger clients who spoke about the idiosyncrasies of grown-up life with a feeling of self-conscious shame. Being overwhelmed about how to manage money or clean out their kitchen pantry were things they felt they had to hide. “I just saw a lot of my clients struggle with life, trying to be competent in skills that we’re not necessarily taught. People had this sense of internal embarrassment,” she says.

To Weinstein, this seemed like a golden business opportunity. As a group, 26-year-olds are the single biggest age cohort in the U.S., followed by people who are 25, 27, and 24. Yet unlike previous generations, the young people of today are slower to reach the milestones usually associated with adulthood: living independently, forming their own households, having children, and getting married. “Today’s young people,” as the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year, “look different from prior generations in almost every regard.”

Tempting as it might be to identify the price of avocados as the culprit in this stunted generational progress, there may be other reasons to explain the shift. A research report released in the spring by Freddie Mac cited weak wage growth and the rapid rise of both housing costs and average expenditures as some of the principal reasons. “A popular meme, ‘adulting is hard,’ provides a humorous take on the challenges faced by young adults,” the authors wrote. “Like a lot of good comedy, the phrase has a tinge of cruelty.”

The typical adulting student is someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid told to get good grades.

Geography plays a role, too: Millennials tend to choose to live in the centers of high-cost cities, and their earning power hasn’t kept pace with housing costs. Since 2000, the median home price in the U.S. has risen by a quarter, from $210,000 to $270,000, while the per capita real income for young adults has risen by only 1 percent during that same period. Throw those myriad factors together, and you have some of the explanation for why 20-somethings are renting for longer periods of time than they once did, as well as why marriage and fertility rates have dropped. Appropriately, Freddie Mac’s report was titled, “Why Is Adulting Getting Harder?”

But if you go further back, delaying the markers of adulthood does have historical precedent, says Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor at Lake Forest College. She recently completed a project examining adulthood in America from the Civil War to the present day. For much of the period Swyers studied, many Americans over 18 followed roughly the same trajectory as modern Millennials do: They spent their 20s figuring out life and establishing themselves financially. The script didn’t flip until the 1950s and 1960s, when the markers that defined crossing over into the world of adulthood came to mean marrying and having children.

“Marrying when you’re 20, having kids by 21, and being established is a little bit freakish in American history,” she says.

So if those Americans of yore managed to (eventually) attain maturity without the aid of online courses, why can’t Millennials?

Maybe we really are uniquely ignorant. That’s the thesis that GOP senator and Gen Xer Ben Sasse presents in his book The Vanishing American Adult. He writes that younger Americans have willfully embraced “perpetual adolescence.” Some of this is our fault, evidently: staring at our smartphones for hours on end has obliterated our attention spans. Yet Sasse also places blame at the feet of his own generation for its “reluctance to expose young people to the demands of real work.”

Weinstein, however, offers another explanation. She attributes the acute modern need for additional grow-up instruction to class and demographics. Her typical adulting student is probably someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid who was repeatedly told to bring home good grades in order to get into a good college. “Whatever folks are really being pressured for college prep, they’re just not getting as much time and exposure at home hanging out with their family, learning how to unclog the kitchen sink, or hang a picture on the wall,” she says.

Lots of those over-scheduled and test-prepped teens of the aughts also missed out on erstwhile educational staples like home economics and shop classes, where high-school kids once learned how to darn a sock or hold a hammer; many schools began mothballing these mandatory courses in the 1990s. As a result, legions of American high-school graduates are being unleashed on the world without any basic skills. Some higher-education institutions, such as New Jersey’s Drew University, have stepped in to offer “Adulting 101” classes in things like beginner car care for their undergraduates.

The Adulting Collective doesn’t rely solely on Weinstein’s expertise for its courses, although it appears that designing an adulting curriculum is just as much of a challenge as growing up. Right now, the website contains some short posts and links to videos explaining a few skills, which is a deviation from the original idea to enlist instructors to offer online lessons. According to Weinstein, the new plan heading into 2019 is to build out a membership program that involves action challenges similar to the nutrition course I took part in. “One of the things I’ve learned as a therapist is a lot of times a little bit of accountability to somebody helps us achieve goals and get tasks done,” she says.

To Swyers, what’s extraordinary in Adulting Ed isn’t the curriculum itself, which is a pretty standard mix of self-improvement and personal finance tips. It’s the notion of branding such lessons under the “adulting” rubric. After all, classes geared toward grown-ups and their skills are all over the place. Visit any big-box hardware store and chances are there’s some sort of hands-on workshop taking place, for example. “If somebody is willing to be taught, for instance, basic kitchen skills--which people pay for all the time--they don’t call it an ‘adulting collective.’ They call it a cooking class,” Swyers says.

The difference, says Weinstein, is that the way younger adults are expected to grow older and assume our place in the world has dramatically changed: “I don’t think it’s a ‘hapless Millennial’ kind of thing at all. I just think there are things that are harder about the world today.”

Case in point: The spiraling costs of higher education. Those emerging adults are entering the workforce with massive student loans to pay off; no wonder some days all they can manage to do is Instagram bewildered-dog memes. “I have clients graduating from school with over $100,000 dollars worth of debt,” she says. “When you’re paying a mortgage’s worth of school debt every month, you’re probably going to need a little help stashing some money away in an emergency fund.”

Indeed, the most useful takeaways from my own brush with the adulting industry involved money management. Last fall’s challenge on budgeting included a chart for itemizing monthly breakdowns of expenses: so many dollars toward utilities, housing, food, clothing, and so on. After six months of following the chart I completed during the challenge, I managed to save up a sizable emergency fund of eight months’ worth of expenses--not bad for a freelance writer who graduated college with $250 to his name, and well worth the $5 I paid for the course itself.

The class was theirs. But the experience was all mine. And with my savings in order, I was freed up to stash excess cash in an additional account my wife and I hold to save for a future home down payment. With a house on the horizon, we’ve recently turned our attention to the prospect of having children sooner rather than later.

#adulting #adulting classes

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thefangirlingbarista · 4 years

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My H.S. Rant

Which is actually more of a plea to his fans who are struggling.

I feel like I should preface this by saying that I Love Harry Styles. I love him, but I am disappointed in some of his underlining message in the Zane Lowe interview. I also feel pretty confident in saying that this boy is Not Okay.

The First Thing: Therapy. I don’t know if this is what he meant to imply or not, but not going to therapy bc ur having the same type of conversations with your friends is not actually okay. Like, yeah. opening up and being vulnerable to ur friends is important. but it doesn’t replace going to a therapist who went to school to train for the specific thing. talking to your friends can help release some of that initial steam, but it doesn’t give you tools to navigate the hurdles that life is throwing at you.

It also isn’t necessarily fair to your friends, either. I’ve been guilty of this, so I’m not putting myself on a pedestal. but we never know what our friends are going through, truly and honestly, because we’re not walking in their shoes. so we can vent and rant to them, and for all we know they are not in the head space to take on our burdens. which just adds more burdens for them. and on the other hand, we should not be expected to carry the burdens of our friends. it is okay to be like ‘yo, i know ur hurting right now/i know ur mad right now/i know u need to talk right now but i just cant. can we come back to this later?”

Friends dont replace therapy and therapy doesnt replace friends.

Subpoint: Writing a song/writing a poem/writing a story about an issue you have and then moving on is not actually... moving on.

it goes hand in hand with the venting to a friend thing. it releases the initial steam but it doesnt actually solve the problem at hand.

I wrote a story 8ish years ago, and the problems i was going through then that motivated me to write that specific story im still dealing with. bc i just put it in the story, didnt talk to my therapist about it, and ‘moved on.’ now im 8 years older, just now facing the fact of what my problems were and dealing with them head on.

its essentially like bottling up ur emotions. which. is. not. good. it’ll just eat you up in the end.

writing about your problems, your issues, and what you dont like about yourself is not a replacement for going to therapy.

The Second Thing. Drugs/Alcohol. I don’t even know where to start with this one. But it’s pretty simple, i guess.

“if youre taking anything to escape or try to hide from stuff, then you shouldn’t even drink. and if youre taking anything to have fun and be creative then great.”

MY PALS. THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT.

Yes he was with friends. yes he felt safe. and if you ever want to do drugs or get drunk then that’s the way to do it, trust me. my first time getting high i did not feel safe and i definitely shouldn’t have done it. BUT HE IS CONTRADICTING HIMSELF.

obvs dont do anything to try to escape. but if you have to take drugs or alcohol to have fun.... my guys. we have a problem. and if you have to get high or drunk to get creative... mates. we have a problem.

if you do those things you can still become dependent on them in order to have fun/be creative. to tear down those walls. that aint good.

if i ever get to the point where i have to become drunk to write a well written, creative story, then just take that away from me. i dont want it.

this is why the arts – all of them – can be so dangerous. it’s encouraged by most professional in most fields to get drunk to break down those barriers and find that creative drive. and we keep going further and further to get deeper into that creative well until we’re so deep we can’t get out and then we’re... gone.

and i guess more than anything i am so incredibly disappointed in my boy harry. he has this incredible platform where he has the attention and adoration of the upcoming generation and the younger millennials only to...

encourage them to get high for creative sake?

nah bro. i can’t support that.

and i know this isn’t the popular opinion. and i know that a lot of people will probably come at me with all caps. i know i sound like a grandma. but i am. i am a grandma and i deeply care about gen z and millennials. and bc of that, i can’t condone what harry said.

if you’re struggling... dont settle just talking to friends. dont settle just releasing that sadness or anxiety or whatever the heck issue you have into some creative outlet or a friend. go find a therapist.

if youre struggling being creative or having fun. dont do drugs. there are plenty of other ways to loosen up.

#this is my rant this is my plea #pls dont come at me #mine

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knzrawr · 4 years

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Automatic therapist habits do not work while drinking.

I can literally talk to anyone about anything and make them feel seen, heard, and understood. This makes people fall in enthrallment with me, whether I’m aware of it, want it, or not. (I know… I sound conceited as hell but bear with me.) As part of my professional training (and let’s be honest, training to be a human), I use reflective listening. This practice is an art of rewording and affirming or validating things someone else says and it keeps the conversation flowing. Reflective listening is so ingrained in my habits that I could do it in my sleep. I used it constantly and perfected the art of being a good listener during the 500 hours of therapy I completed during graduate school. So, the second you start talking to me, I seem super engaged and interested by mirroring your actions, words, and you get so much validation from this experience that you want more. Reality: Most of the time, I couldn’t care less because I’m off somewhere else thinking about which kind of cheese is the meltiest or wondering why bats don’t eat very small dogs. Join me there, won’t you?

It sounds horrible, right? Here’s my question for you, reader: are you always interested in the things people say to you? Likelihood minimal. People mostly talk about themselves and about things they’re interested in because it makes them feel impassioned and important. We all do it. Why do you think I’m writing this right now?

The difference for me is a big one: in my job, I listen to people talk about themselves 40+ hours a week; in my personal life, I want people to ask me questions sometimes so that we have an actual two-way, equal and engaging conversation that’s not about work. Is it too much to ask for someone to show some interest in my thoughts versus my objectie productivity? No, no it’s not, because I’m human too. Sometimes it’s just hard to find. So here’s a couple of examples of how reflective listening gets me into trouble:

To the guy in the bar: I may be drunk, but my judgment is perfectly aware that I’m not interested in you. Please lean your diet coke and rum-soaked, too-white teeth about 4 feet behind you - I smiled at you because you’re hulking and in between my painfully full bladder and sweet, sweet relief. Now you’ve cornered me between your monstrous frame and a janky barstool. I’m peering past you trying to figure out how to inch my way around you, and all the while, I’m repeating what you say without looking at you at all. This is classic automatic reflective listening at its finest. Take the lack of eye contact, flat affect, and inching away as a major hint. Stop talking to me about your sister and how she doesn’t listen to your obviously bad advice about period cramps. Zip your chapped lips and pay attention to someone other than yourself. Your form and me smiling doesn’t give you the right to bombard me with your trash breath and shitty lack of perspective.

Let’s be clear here, I don’t expect this man to be a mind-reader. That’s unfair, especially when I’m not verbalizing my boundaries overtly or clearly. I do, however, expect him to use his eyes and try to read some body language, which is about 80% of communication anyway. And I think that’s an appropriate human expectation, right?

Later that evening, a tall, charming, southern gentleman approaches me with a sweet smile and an offer for a fresh drink. He starts by asking me questions, so I obliged because some gorgeous man asking me questions is literally all I want in this world:

Him: “What do you do” (classic opener)

Me: “I work in mental health”

Him: “Oh, so your job is really hard then.” [nods vehemently]

Me: “Yeah, exactly [I smile sheepishly, surprised by this uncommonly other-aware response]. What do you do?” (this is called ‘verbal mirroring’)

Him: “I work in finance… [insert jargon that goes way over my head, reflective listening, nodding]. What do your finances look like?”

Me: [nodding and smiling until it lands what this supposed gentleman just asked] “Uhhhhhh… what?! I work for a nonprofit and I have a master’s degree so I’m basically a fancy bridge troll” [shoulders up to my ears in a shrug].

Him: [he laughs like he knows what I mean, but clearly doesn’t] “So you’re saying you could use some financial guidance?”

Me: [I smile, reflect the question back] “Financial guidance?” [and then I say the first thing that comes to my mind]: “You’re so bougie!” [my inner critic gasps at my outward rudeness while my arms slowly make their way into a t-rex posture… my poor self can’t quite keep up with this obviously more mathematically advanced, less intoxicated, and incredibly wealthy millennial baby]

Him: [he smiles, agrees, and continues talking about how he could deign financial support]

Me: He’s sweet, he seems interested. Maybe being 2 years younger and a trust fund kid doesn’t impact him THAT much? However, he’s talking to me about deigning approval of my finances…. SPLIT. SPLIT FAST. [I start to Nick Miller-style moonwalk away, frown and all, because my reflective listening has completely run out and I’m officially bored. Also, who asks about your financial situation within 3 minutes of knowing you?! So inappropriate. And in true reflective listening style, my responses matched the situation.

As I find myself with my friends again, the self-doubt pours in: Did I invite him into a conversation about finances or did he assume? Was it something I said that made him think that kind of boundary-crossing would be appropriate? Did I smile too much? Did I nod or talk too much? Make too much eye contact? FUCK. And then I get distracted by a good friend who pulls me out of my intense negative self-talk with a promise of finding a man dressed in a wolf onesie at the next location. Yay!

The lesson here, dear reader, is that sometimes we do things so automatically that it doesn’t dawn on us until it’s too late and the situation becomes unbearably awkward or boring. Being a therapist has lots of perks: I understand peoples’ patterns, behaviors, I’m not afraid to ask clarifying questions, keep a conversation going, and so-on. But when it comes to having to stop an annoying conversation in an appropriate and less curmudgeon-ey way, I’m a baby. And stopping those automatic processes that make me seem so enticing to others creates more internal distress than some serious italian food-based bubble gut. Why? Because we humans move through the world being so unaware of what we do and how it impacts others. Having to change that habit, along with allllllll the other habits that impact us and those around us takes a higher level of work than I’m willing to do, generally. I often choose to be lazy, but I also know that if I put in more work to be present and establish a hard boundary, my life would be easier and so much less awkward than that of a HAM (Hot Ass Mess).

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ionecoffman · 5 years

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Millennials Are Sick of Drinking

On January 20, 2017, Cassie Schoon rolled into work with a hangover. It was the morning of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, and Schoon, who doesn’t count herself among the president’s fans, had gone out for drinks with friends the night before to take her mind off it. The evening’s distraction left her in pretty rough shape the next day. “I was in this meeting feeling absolutely miserable and I was like, you know, this is not what grownups do,” she says.

Since then, Schoon, who is 37 and lives in Denver, has cut way back on alcohol. “[Drinking] has to be more of an occasion for me now, like someone’s birthday or a girl’s night,” she says. “So it’s once every couple of weeks, instead of a weekly occurrence.” Drinking less wasn’t always simple for her: Denver is a young town with a vibrant brewery and bar scene, and Schoon’s social circle had long centered itself around meeting up for drinks. But avoiding booze has been worth it. “I started to realize there’s no reason I can’t see these people and go to museums or go out for waffles or something,” Schoon says.

In the past few weeks, I’ve heard from more than 100 Americans in their 20s and 30s who have begun to make similar changes in their drinking habits or who are contemplating ways to drink less. They have good company: Public-health efforts have helped drive down adolescent drinking rates, and American beverage manufacturers are beginning to hedge their bets on alcohol’s future. Media, too, has noticed that change is afoot. Recent months have seen a flurry of trend stories about millennials—currently about 22 to 38 years old—getting sober.

But sobriety, a term that generally refers to the total abstention practiced by people in recovery from substance-abuse problems, doesn’t quite tell the story. What some have been quick to characterize as an interest in being sober might actually be more like a search for moderation in a culture that has long treated alcohol as a dichotomy: You either drink whenever the opportunity presents itself, or you don’t drink at all. Many millennials—and especially the urban, college-educated consumers prized by marketers—might just be tired of drinking so much.

There isn’t any great statistical evidence yet that young adults have altered their drinking habits on a grand scale. Changes in habit often lag behind changes in attitude, and national survey data on drinking habits reflect only small declines in heavy alcohol use. (For men, that’s drinking five alcoholic beverages in a short period of time five or more times in a month; for women, it’s four drinks under the same conditions.) From 2015 through 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, the rate of millennials who report that they have consumed any amount of alcohol in the past month has remained pretty steady, at more than 60 percent.

But there are limitations to this data that would make it difficult to capture the types of changes that people described to me. Someone who has cut back from regularly having two or three glasses of wine with dinner to only having a glass once a week, for example, would still fall into the same statistical category, eliding shifts that might make a huge difference on a personal level. And a desire to drink less doesn’t mean that people no longer enjoy drinking. Instead, it might be that alcohol-centric socializing has crept into more parts of people’s lives and stuck around for longer than previous generations had to contend with it.

For young Americans, drinking is very social. “I drank pretty regularly in my 20s, especially in social situations,” says Leanne Vanderbyl, who lives in San Francisco. “It wasn’t until I hit my 30s that I realized that alcohol was no longer my friend.” A few decades ago, marriage and children might have moved urban, college-educated young adults away from social drinking naturally, but fewer millennials are taking part in traditional family-building, and the ones doing it are waiting longer than their parents did. Now, the structure of social life isn’t that different for many people in their mid-30s than it was in their early 20s, which provides plenty of time spent drinking on dates and with friends for them to start to get a little tired of it.

For a generation that’s also behind its forebears when it comes to wealth accumulation, whether or not it’s a good idea to buy a bunch of beer or several $13 cocktails three nights a week can come down to practical concerns. Alex Belfiori, a 30-year-old IT professional in Pittsburgh, decided recently to stop keeping beer in the house. “I’ve already calculated how much I’m saving by not drinking, and I’m thinking about where I can put that money now,” he says. Nina Serven, a 24-year-old brand manager living in Brooklyn, is similarly over it. “Drinking just feels boring and needlessly expensive,” she says, even though she feels social pressure to drink. “I just started a medication that shouldn't be mixed with alcohol, and I'm relieved that I have an easy out.”

Britta Starke, an addictions therapist and the program director of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center at the University of North Carolina, sees a similar malaise in those seeking guidance from in her practice. “There does come a time when there has to be some introspection,” she says. “Folks in the millennial generation have maybe a better sense of balance. Some do yoga or meditation or are physically active, so they don’t need to find stimulation and stress-reduction in substances.” That mirrors the generation’s general interest in maintaining its health, and for those questioning their habits, realizing that a healthier relationship with alcohol doesn’t require most people to give up drinking might ease people’s social concerns.

Still, Starke has noticed some worrying attitudinal trends toward alcohol among her younger patients. Millennials who haven’t developed their generation’s signature coping skills often use alcohol heavily. Starke sees an alarming number of people under 35 with advanced liver disease or alcohol hepatitis. As attitudes may be moderating for many young adults, plenty of others are struggling: Nearly 90,000 people still die from alcohol-related causes in America every year, and that number hasn’t started to meaningfully improve.

Moreover, drinking doesn’t exist in a substance-use vacuum. All the other things millennials are well-known for ingesting play a role in its shifting popularity. “It still seems like this is a generation of self-medicating, but they’re using things differently,” says Starke, and the normalization and ever-more-common legalization of cannabis plays a big role in that.

Among the people I spoke with in detail, several mentioned replacing their evening wine with an evening bowl. “I smoke weed to unwind—thank you, California,” says Vanderbyl. For her, cannabis lacks the lingering effects that drove her away from alcohol: “I can wake up in the morning feeling ready for the day.” She’s not alone in making that switch. A 2017 study found that in counties with legalized medicinal cannabis, alcohol sales dropped more than 12 percent when compared to similar counties without weed. Recreational legalization has the potential to bolster that effect by making cannabis products even more broadly accessible.

Millennials have also shown what Starke says is worrisome interest in other drugs, the abuse of which may be diverting some of their attention from alcohol. She sees many patients looking for help with opioids, as well as benzodiazepines like Xanax. Just because young people want to drink less often doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better off: Suicide rates are up among young adults, and prescription abuse is a problem the country is only beginning to address.

The beverage industry does seem to see the writing on the wall. Over the past decade, a tide of artisanal alcohol businesses met the swelling millennial market for booze-based socializing, including innumerable microbreweries and distilleries, as well as high-end cocktail bars and wine shops targeting younger clientele. Now, 2018 Nielsen data shows that sales growth across alcohol categories is slowing. Bon Appetit estimates that the market for low- or no-alcohol beverages could grow by almost a third in just the next three years.

If he spaces in which alcohol is consumed will also have to change to meet shifting consumer demands. It’s become notably easier in recent years to find alcohol-free cocktails in urban bars across America. In New York City, a few young entrepreneurs are opening up new kinds of spaces to serve the tastes of their peers. Listen Bar, a clubby pop-up that gives patrons a chance to party without alcohol, is crowdfunding to lease its first permanent location. In Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, Getaway, a bar so dedicated to being booze-free that it won’t even use bitters that contain alcohol, is opening in a few weeks.

Getaway’s owners, Sam Thonis and Regina Dellea, left careers in media to open the bar, which was an idea inspired by Thonis’s brother’s recovery from alcoholism. So far, the reception the pair has received bears out the broader generational shift they’re anticipating. “It feels to me like the older people are, the more they see [our bar] as a thing for sober people. They see it as black or white—you drink or you don’t drink,” says Thonis. “With younger people, there’s a lot more receptiveness to just not drinking sometimes.”

Instead of being the tipping point of any grand trend in alcohol consumption themselves, millennials might simply be the canaries in the coal mine. Statistically, it’s Gen Z, the age group currently in high school and college, that may force a sea change in America’s relationship with alcohol. They’re drinking at lower rates than adolescents have in generations, and so much about a person’s lifetime relationship to substance abuse and consumption is set by usage in early life.

For now, many young adults seem relieved that pressure they’ve internalized to drink is easing and more options are opening up. Drinking’s spot in people’s lives doesn’t have to be as all-or-nothing as American culture has long regarded it. “For many people, when they’re honest with their friends [about wanting to skip out on drinks], their friends are like, ‘Oh my god, I was thinking about that too,’” says UNC’s Starke. “I don’t know too many people who have gotten a negative response.”

Dellea has also noticed a mix of excitement and relief among her bar’s prospective patrons. “An Instagram account put up a picture of the bar,” she says. “A lot of the comments were just people tagging their friends.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

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nancygduarteus · 5 years

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Millennials Are Sick of Drinking

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/millennials-sober-sick-of-drinking/586186/?utm_source=feed

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Hooters, the granddaddy of the American “breastaurant,” has steadfastly stuck to the formula that led to its success in the 1980s, right down to its iconic uniform. Even if you’ve never set foot inside the chain, you can probably describe it: white sneakers, pantyhose, orange short shorts, and a white tank top, where a presumably horny owl’s eyes double as the Os in the chain’s name.

But that strategy — and that outfit — may not be working. Business Insider reported that the number of Hooters restaurants decreased 7 percent from 2012 until 2016. While Business Insider attributed this to Pornhub’s findings that millennials are less likely to search for breasts, there is widespread online speculation that the problem lies not with a decreased appreciation of breasts, but with the fact that the concept of the restaurant is outdated and appeals only to the most boorish of baby boomers.

Hooters employees at Hooters Manhattan VIP Press Party on January 15, 2015, in New York City. Bennett Raglin/WireImage

How much is the uniform — an ’80s throwback, right down to the “suntan” pantyhose — to blame? Does the iconic “Hooters girl” look embody a concept that no longer has a place in the modern marketplace? Could Hooters save its brand with an aesthetic overhaul?

Hooters itself is surprisingly hush-hush about the uniform at the center of its business plan. The only company-sanctioned description available dates back to 2005, when the Smoking Gun website published an official Hooters employee manual. Its contents ruffled some feathers; employees had to sign a statement in it that they “hereby acknowledge … the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace.” It may have gotten a rewrite in the intervening years, but the Hooters public relations department did not respond to a request for an updated copy of the employee manual, or to questions about the origin of the Hooters aesthetic.

It’s difficult to verify the uniform’s exact requirements because women who work at Hooters are either very reluctant or unable to provide a copy of the dress code. Marisa, a former Hooters employee, never had access an up-to-date copy of the employee manual because, according to her, it didn’t exist.

The dress code “was verbally communicated,” Marisa (who asked to be identified by first name only) wrote in an email. She explained that “there were pictures of how a ‘model Hooters girl’ was supposed to look” posted in a staff-only area, “and there were posts on a bulletin board reminding us the amount of makeup we had to wear and how our hair could be done.” (It should be noted that different locations have slight variations in their dress codes.)

Marisa added, “The dress code was extremely strict. Our managers would meet with all the girls who were about to start their shift and check that our hair was done, makeup was done (at least mascara and lipstick), shirt and shorts had no stains, tights had no rips in them, and shoes were clean and white.”

“Our managers would meet with all the girls who were about to start their shift and check that our hair was done, makeup was done”

The chain has made a few tweaks in recent years, opting to get rid of the white slouch socks that were a hot athleisure trend in the ’80s. According to an Orange County news story from 2009, the original high-waisted orange shorts were designed by the popular swimwear brand Dolfin, but today women who work at Hooters can wear an updated dance-style short that sits lower on the hips. The pantyhose are still part of the requirements.

How does the modern Hooters employee feel about wearing hose? Another Hooters server, Samantha (who also asked to be identified by first name), said this part of the uniform didn’t give her any pause: “I’m also a ballerina, so I’ve worn pantyhose most of my life. I’m glad it’s part of the uniform because it holds everything in place and makes the shorts fit more flattering.”

Marisa has a different perspective on the tights: “I wasn’t a fan of those because they would rip so easily and we had to buy those almost every two days at $5 a pair.” But she also sees why Hooters wants to keep this part of the look — “I understand the aesthetic … they make you look tan and cover up any marks on your legs.”

The 2005 guidelines explain the nuances behind the “Hooters girl” aesthetic. “Hooters offers its customers the look of the ‘All American Cheerleader, Surfer, Girl Next Door.’” Why a “surfer?” Perhaps this harks back to the surf shops that line the beaches of Clearwater, Florida, where the restaurant first opened in 1983.

Hooters “isn’t even a nickname for breasts anymore”

Back then, Hooters didn’t have to deal with a slew of mediocre online reviews, piled on top of viral Twitter tirades about how Hooters should staff women who could double as therapists. On Yelp, the complaints typically ignore the cleavage and instead focus on cold food, watered-down drinks, and unsatisfactorily small chicken wings.

When reviewers do mention the servers’ looks, they often complain that Hooters isn’t offering its customers the level of titillation that customers expect. One reviewer in Towson, Maryland, said, “If you go because the girls are scantily clad, you would be better off going to the Tilted Kilt” (one of Hooters’ newer competitors in the breastaurant scene).

John M. was similarly frustrated: “Is this a Hooters? I thought it said so on the door, but when I walked in, I didn’t see any Hooters. These are some of the least endowed and ‘heavier around the waist’ Hooters Girls I’ve ever seen.”

Even unhappier is Michael P., who reports, “Girls are overweight, bitter and ugly. Yup it’s superficial but why the heck else do you go there??? Boobies and butts!!! Duh!!!!”

So it doesn’t seem that customers are clamoring for less sexualized uniforms.

Joseph Szala, a restaurant branding expert for Vigor marketing, has helped restaurants overhaul their look to appeal to younger, hipper audiences. For Hooters to revitalize its flagging appeal, he explains that the chain would need a radical overhaul. “It’s a scenario where you have to rethink the whole thing,” he says, starting with the name. Hooters “isn’t even a nickname for breasts anymore.”

But again, it’s not the revealing nature of the uniform that’s the issue. Szala points to Tilted Kilt, which opened in 2003. There, the waitresses dress like school girls, à la Britney Spears in the “Baby One More Time” music video.

“If you look at Tilted Kilt, it’s a rather modern interpretation of a sexualized woman, whereas Hooters maintains a 1990s Florida beach look,” he said. The newer chain also capitalizes on innuendo and scantily clad servers but has (until very recently) enjoyed steady growth.

Another racy fast-casual chain, Twin Peaks, has a similar story — its outfits might be the most suggestive of all the breastaurants, which Szala describes as “an outdoorsy girl … gone sexy.” Despite the recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints filed by former servers, the chain enjoyed healthy growth in 2017.

Szala points to Hooters’ menu as an issue. Tilted Kilt and Twin Peaks offer menus that are more in tune with casual restaurant trends. Tilted Kilt has vaguely Irish-themed “pub fare,” including items like “pub nachos”; Twin Peaks boasts a freshly prepared, “from scratch” menu. “Hooters was created for one purpose: to get dangerously close to showing people naughty places,” Szala says. That’s a service we can get elsewhere, and at restaurants that serve more interesting food.

A Hooters restaurant sign above patrons eating in downtown Santa Monica. Getty Images

Szala has a few other ideas for how Hooters could refresh its look. For one, it could come up with a style that’s “a bit more aligned with what is truly the girl next door.” And that means playing down the uniformity of the uniform. “Let women have the option of length of shorts, as well as style of tops,” he says. “As a brand in general, if they let the women that they hire express themselves in a way that’s more comfortable, the experience feels less forced.”

It’s not unusual for businesses to update their uniforms — Szala points out that airlines change their uniforms every few years in order to keep up with changing fashions.

Interesting he should mention airlines. Hooters had its own airline from 2003 to 2006, which ended up losing the company $40 million. What happened to Hooters’ willingness to take risks?

Hooters has experimented with revising its business model, but with none of the boldness that brought us Hooters Air. 2017 saw the opening of Hoots, a pared-down version of Hooters that offers only the most popular menu items. Sex appeal isn’t part of the package; male and female employees wear standard fast-food uniforms of khakis and orange polos.

Jean S. said in a Yelp review of the new Hoots in Cicero, Illinois, “the young women get to keep their dignity and aren’t revealing any skin.” Matthew Torres X has a more ambiguous take: “It’s like you get to enjoy your wings without the inconvenience of beautiful women all over the place.”

Hoots’ dull approach to uniforms underlines what the chain has in common with so many from the baby boomer era: Like a dad who trades in his zany ’80s sweaters for a North Face jacket, Hooters’ response to change has so far been to become a blander version of itself. If its “1980s Florida girl next door” look doesn’t fly anymore, it seems Hooters would rather not have a look at all.

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Original Source -> Hooters is closing restaurants. Is its offensive uniform to blame?

via The Conservative Brief

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sandiegojobsondemand · 6 years

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Job Openings Disappoint As Americans

None of these are real “jobs”. They’re just advertisements so they can bring in the H1B workers.

“Engineering Project Manager for Silicon Design Division – Prior government expertise required, prior personal practice expertise needed, 20 years minimal experience. Must reside and work in Palo Alto. Independent Contractor position, 10 dollars an hour”

I’ve been job hunting for a long time so I Can escape the hell of my present job. Everything is temporary, contract, and pays $12 a hour. Rent is so high I can not take a pay cut. I am younger than many here, and I am just spinning my wheels and so is everyone else my age.

If you can and I am aware that it is a big IF nowadays. Try working on yourself just as much as possible. Shlep life insurance, repair stuff and generate cash payments to you where and if you may.

Don’t be reluctant to drive around the industrial park searching for work. Nobody does that anymore. Nobody.

The realtor market in my area is flourishing. Not real estate – agent. Thousands of people have gotten their real estate license in the past few years to the point that there are twice as many realtors than houses for sale in inventory at any 1 time.

They’re all just Searching for a chance to make some money someplace. I imagine it’s the same in the insurance sector.

The agents that are in debt or present practicing while utilizing debt will quickly become non-active. Getting in and out of real estate is about luck and timing and being in the perfect area.

My daughter who is 41 and her husband are now earning roughly $90K. They have 3 girls and can not make ends meet enough to buy a home. They drive used cars and don’t waste any money on vacations or grownup toys. They haven’t a clue about how things ended up that way but instead just thrash and wail against the politics. I try to get them to understand the real cause but because it was not on their “No child left behind” school program – they don’t understand the way the money cartel works. My only word of advise to you is to use the internet to educate yourself exactly what you were not taught in school. Spoiler – prevent debt however much that they tease you to lure. No debt =liberty.

I’m grateful I knew enough to avoid debt. When I was in school I tried to inform my friends that but they treated pupil loans and credit cards such as free money – and they do. I have a Little Bit of student debt and also have paid off the car I Intend to drive for a long, long time.

Believe it or not two of mine are still paying off school loans by a little school in PA after graduating in 2001 & 2003! We’re helping at a tune of $700 per month since co-signors. I just noticed with ACS any excess payment goes towards future payments not the principal! What a racket!

Some may say I am an idiot, but I am okay with that. Here is exactly what *I* could do on your situation – I would move in with my relatives or friends TEMPORARILY. I would build a Small home onto a trailer. PROPERLY. Or better still, I would find one that someone had built to reside in (and had been assembled PROPERLY), also purchase that because they are worth squat next hand.

If You Wish to get head Nowadays, a Wonderful place to live, freedom, freedom from debt are KEY. And that’s how it’s done. Purchasing property nowadays (except unimproved land for your cellular home – not crappy mobile dwelling) is insane, and so is paying rent.

Read a post here recently, where a person invested 30K to training to become a racing engine machinist. Later, I forget exactly, around a year of training, his first year he left 25K, next 45K, then 3 or 4 years he was creating 96K. The jist; prepare to do something someone is willing to pay for. I got three children that Im wanting to do this through with.

Space share, reside on a ship, anything. You have to receive your outgoings down.

Do you will need a vehicle,or is it cheaper to hire? .

What’s the cheapest possible phone deal?

The machine has you in the paycheck-to-paycheck trap, and you’re going to need to do the fiscal equivalent of gnawing your own foot off to escape, but get you out must.

And the easy understanding of understanding you can inform any boss to shove it is of inestimable price. Your mental health will enhance hugely, and also your manager will real treat you better if s/he knows this (fall subtle hints).

I have two bachelors degrees and they’re not in gender studies or social studies. My degrees are in science and business and I can not find a job in my field. Whatever, I am simply discourged and ventilation.

Dude, I am doing exactly the exact same job I was doing in 2003 after graduate school and fine jobs in PE.

Find something different. I am reinventing myself to program, therefore I don’t have to rely on anybody to code what I know needs to have done.

I am also on the look out to additional biz opportunities.

We’re in 1920s Europe at the moment. You are all on your own.

In the early 80’s it was pretty awful for occupations where I lived. I was hired by three firms and prior to the first start date I receivied a call saying due to business conditions the job I was hired for vanished. After three of these, I said screw it and began my own company.

This was a very long time past, there were weeks I hardly made enough to put food on the table and other months when money was flowing in.

You can not rely on a degree alone. You need to be versatile and eager to do whatever the job demands.

In my opinion this is the only means. Those Wall St types that make countless are the exception, not the principle and many got those places by chance and that they know, just as it has always been.

Just take any fulltime job that doesn’t treat you like shit, if you can find one.

Start learning how to construct your own (easy) home.

Strategy to give up the rat race whenever possible.

It’s not going to get better.

I’ve tried watching a couple of reality television survivor shows in the uk recently: leaving men on islands, letting them set up communes, trying to pass SAS type evaluations etc.. Anyhow, what struck me is that 95 percent of the morons on the displays have non existent jobs but are incredibly proud of these…

Personal coaches, hypnosis therapists, feet massagers/aromatherapists, jugglers, vloggers, Zumba instructors, sandwich artists, baristas, freelance tree surgeons, etc..etc. . .one girl proved to be a twerking trainer, I shit you not even a twerking mentor.

I take that a lot of the fukctards who go on those displays will be weird narcissists, they are the only people having the spare time to go on those torturous and vacuous displays, but it struck me that all these millennials have just this on offer in our service industry, consumer spend driven economy. It is over, we are so past peak human.

Require 5 thousand people off most of the free shit and let them to Begin applying for those 5 million projects

I am hoping that job creation and unemployment numbers will now be correctly reported. I am really tired of seeing rainbows and unicorns when there are none. Get ready yourself for the worst and hope for the best. Keep Stackin Bitchezzz !

Let’s review what I know about applying for a job and the way I believe that the scam operates. Your resume shows:

Your title, are you male or female, are you associated with the Smiths or Joneses we know or are you a foreigner.

Your address, are you currently a local candidate or do you reside on the wrong side of town.

Your present employer, in case you’ve got a job we’re interested if you aren’t presently employed, we’re not curious. What financial compensation might you be hoping to take a new job?

Where else are you worked and when, how long do you keep employed before you move on to another company or are there any gaps in your job history? In case you have openings we’re not curious.

Your education, did you go to a prestigious school or a community school. If you went to a prestigious school perhaps you’re well connected and we’ll pay you a superior, a community school, not too much.

Your references, that will guarantee you. We need names, titles of people that you know that we don’t, we need to talk to someone we don’t know to vouch for someone we don’t trust.

Everything you won’t know when applying for a job are the states of employment. If you knew what went on here you would not be employing.

Here is what happened? 95 million American workers, not in the US labour force. As a guideline, if you want something, tax it.

Source

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/job-openings-disappoint-americans-quitting-their-jobs-tumble

from Sandiego jobs on demand http://www.sandiegojobsondemand.com/job-openings-disappoint-as-americans/

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