The Boomer-Millennial Divide: It’s All About the Gumption

In the New York Times, Michael Winerip writes,

“Older workers don’t have the choice of withdrawing from the labor force,” said Mr. Hipple, pointing out that they have mortgages to pay, health issues and retirement to worry about, as well as children to put through college.

Tory Johnson, owner of Women for Hire, which for the last decade has run job fairs in America’s 10 largest cities, has been struck by the toughness of the boomer work force. “With the 20- and 30-somethings, the attitude is, ‘No one is hiring, what’s the point of going to a job fair?’ ” Ms. Johnson said. “With the boomers, it’s, ‘Even if there’s one job, I’ll try.’ ” At her 16 job fairs so far in 2009, she said, attendance is up 10 percent over all, and it’s because of boomers; every other age group has declined.

As we get older, we get more stuff. There is more stuff to worry about, pay for, agonize over, renew or give away. You have more stuff like mortgages, kids, bills, bigger appetites, bigger egos, more gray hair. Yet, it seems like the hustle of Millennial youth is being outpaced by Boomer gumption. The stuff of guts and gumption is being motivated by saving  all the stuff you’ve worked so hard for.

But, is this aggressiveness something you get only as you get older because you have more stuff?

Or, is it that while Boomers look for jobs, Millennials look for ways to change the world?

In the Huffington Post, Saul Garlick writes,

My generation wants to incorporate what it learns from its experience abroad about leveraging community resources to create sustainable development into its careers — as policymakers, as entrepreneurs, as eventual philanthropists.

To address these issues, funds abound, but social change does not. Young people provide an untapped resource to redirect this ineffectual course. Their idealism and open-mindedness to new solutions create opportunities to empower communities to develop and own solutions to poverty. Generation Y is the generation of social innovation.

Global citizenship, social change and activism- the stuff of social innovation.  We leave behind wide-eyed optimism and idealism for hustling to save 401ks and mortgage payments.

As we get older, does our gumption to save and protect the stuff in our world morph into saving and protecting the stuff only in our house?