For the average person in the world, there has never been a preceding era when it has been better to be alive.Īnd yet, relative to our boomer parents, the millennial financial reality and future is objectively more precarious and less optimistic. Though there is inequality shot through this, it does not merely describe the rich world experience: the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has plummeted as developing countries have converged on their wealthy neighbors. Climate change threatens to render all of this moot, but on a pure quality of life measure, we collectively enjoy better health outcomes, longer lives, more education, more individual freedoms and more geographic mobility than anyone before us. Despite cascading crises, right now is the most materially comfortable moment in human history. Millennials, born between 19, have spent their entire adult lives in a financial paradox. What took longer was un-becoming the asshole they almost made me. In the span of a year, the numbers came, danced, disappeared. Not about the money anyway, because within four weeks, the bulk of it was gone. They owned no property because of their choice to be “war tax resisters”, and both had consciously dedicated their careers as a legal aid attorney and a Presbyterian minister to low-paying social justice work at the detriment of material possessions and substantial retirement accounts.īut if his worry was that he didn’t know how to relate to a son who was now rich, then he needn’t have. Both of my parents had taken vows of poverty to each other as part of their wedding vows their guiding philosophy was to “live simply so that others may simply live”. My dad remained silent, in a way that felt more accusing and harder to confront – as if I had suddenly upended his conception of the world. “Oh my God, are you one of those … Game Stop people?” she said, referring to the brief and spectacular rise in stock price of the video game retailer after amateur investors rallied around it in early 2021. I dispelled her accusation by opening up my investment account on my iPhone and turning the screen towards her to show her the balance. “Are you on drugs?” my mom finally asked, anxiety flashing across her face.

They both stopped and looked at me, silent.

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