Modern Day Risk Taking
We are a generation that loves taking risks. We hike mountains and jump out of planes and we don’t have health insurance. We try new foods and explore new places. We visit foreign countries when we know we can’t speak the language, and we pray that someone at a cafe knows English and can translate the menu so that we don’t starve. We take jobs that require us to move across the country. We go to concerts alone and walk home by ourselves at 2am. We drive 80 in 65s. We go out on Friday nights and charge our rent to our credit cards. We won’t hesitate to buy a $5 latte when we know we only have $5.04 in our checking accounts.
Risk excites us, regardless of how big or small. We thrive off the rush we get when we take a risk and it all pans out. We are adrenaline junkies, craving the feeling of being invincible. And in the odd instance when things don’t work out the way we hoped, we brush it off. We are fine because at least we tried, and now we know better. Lesson learned. We move on to the next risk.
All of that is true, until it comes to our hearts. We refuse to take risks with our feelings. Vulnerability is something we cannot fathom. We are guarded, careful not to show too much of ourselves to any one person. We fear opening ourselves up for rejection. We build our walls up high, and when someone decides climbing over that wall requires more effort than they’re willing to put forth, we torture ourselves with all of the reasons we believe we’re not worthy.
We’ve heard it a million times: “this generation doesn’t date anymore.” As much as we want to call bullshit when we hear it, there’s truth in the message.We cannot let people know we feel things. We have internal debates about whether or not we should ask out someone we’re interested in. We send texts explaining how our needs aren’t being met, and then immediately start kicking ourselves for saying anything at all when the messages have been left unread for too long. We run at the first sign of feelings. We’re comfortable spending every weekend hooking up and talking about surface level life things with a nice person who makes us feel good, but the second the topic of exclusivity comes up, we can’t breathe. We want out. We search for the next person to fill our time and we do it all again.
Our generation will offer our money and our futures as a wager to make it through the next attractive obstacle, but we turn into cowards the second someone asks for our love.