Okay, Boomer

I pressed pause on my Spotify app and sighed. Oh God, this monotony was torture.

I was sitting in an open-plan coworking space in Sydney, a year earlier, staring at my laptop screen. My fingers darted across the trackpad, copy-pasting content, and formatting headings on a new website I was building. This was the closest I'd ever come to a stable job, and it was putting my mind to sleep.

Don't get me wrong — I valued the work. I'd joined the not-for-profit on a part-time contract, basically coming on as a 'fixer of things.' I could flow into any part of the organization like water, identifying the root cause of a problem, then creating an innovative solution. I wasn't an expert in any one skill set, but I could do just about anything with a decent level of proficiency.

It was a very strange concept for me — you know, actually getting paid for my time. I could sit down at a computer, do some work, and money would magically appear in my bank account each week. At twenty-seven years old, this was still a novelty for me. I'd been running my own businesses since I was fifteen, and was so used to throwing all the money back into the startup to grow it. Then, when the business eventually failed, I was used to losing it all and starting at square one.

You see, I was never content to execute a standard business model providing proven products and services. No. That sounded boring to me. I always wanted to innovate and create something truly new for the world to enjoy — like a fashion-trading platform that used a virtual currency, or an online school running live virtual coding classes for Minecraft-loving kids. Unfortunately, innovation is the antithesis of security. Innovation is chaos.

I listened to the rhythmic tapping of my fingers on the keyboard. Is this the best I have to offer the world? I asked myself as I edited the size of an image. So many people would kill for this contract — decent pay, flexible, location-independent, a fun team, a great mission. And it's not like I'm bad at this. I can do it. I always try to do my best. But is this really it? Is this what life is supposed to be for me? There are a million other people better at this job than I am. Is this what I have to contribute to the world in order to survive?

I flashed back to six weeks earlier — the day I arrived home from Phuket. I'd been training at the Muay Thai camp for several months, and although the exercise had kept my mind in check, my depression was getting worse. I wasn't myself. I wasn't functioning properly.

One day I'd had enough. I decided to press pause on my nomadic dreams and return to Australia. Chaos wasn't working for me. My curiosity kept violently pulling me in different directions. It felt like every project I worked on eventually turned to shit, so what was the point in even trying? I may as well just get a job. Then at least someone could pay me for my work.

God, I felt like such a colossal failure. My mind would violently ricochet between euphoria and apathy, certainties and doubts — and I didn't know why. Other people didn't seem to function the same way I did. I wondered what was wrong with me.

My parents came to pick me up from Sydney airport. I hadn't seen them in a long time. We went out to lunch, then back to their place. As my mother and I sat in the living room, she asked what my plans were for the future. My parents were always supportive of whatever I wanted to do, but I knew they worried about me. They'd seen my income go up and down; the struggle I'd been through to find my feet in the world.

"I think I'm going to apply for a job that Pandora told me about," I said. "They seem pretty keen to have me, and I've never had a job before. I've tried being incredibly free, and that just resulted in chaos. Now there's something oddly appealing about being constrained. Maybe I'll like it. I'm a little bit curious."

A huge smile broke out across my mother's face. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. My words were music to her ears.

At that moment, my father walked into the room, holding two drinks. "Well, that's great if they'll have you," he said in his jolly tone. "You're twenty-seven years old with nothing to show on your resume."

My eyes locked with his, and I froze. I could feel my throat constricting, my eyes tearing up.

Nothing to show on my resume? Nothing to show on my resume? Is that what he thought of me? That I was a deadbeat; a failure; a fuckup who had wasted the past ten years of her life? I was twenty-seven years old and had achieved nothing. I was twenty-seven years old and should grovel on the ground for any job I could get because who the fuck would want to hire a worthless, skill-less, stupid little girl like me? Who would want to hire the girl with no degree, who gave up her university scholarship and dropped out to move to New York and chase her dreams when she was twenty years old? Who would want to hire the girl who wasn't a specialist in anything — I wasn't a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant. I couldn't tick boxes. I struggled with authority. I didn't fit neatly into a category or a job title. There was no label for everything I'd learned in my life. I'd received no certificate on completion of the many exams I'd sat: the hard knocks of failure, rejection, and crippling self-doubt. I had no value to offer society because I was twenty-seven years old with nothing to show on my resume. At that moment, he may as well have called me the biggest disappointment of his life.

I gasped for air and immediately ran to my room before the tears could start. I closed the door, turned off the light, and dove into bed, pulling the covers over my head, so I didn't have to look at the world around me.

I'd spent my entire adult life being told by The Matrix that I had no skills. My innovations were insanely difficult to get off the ground and get paid for. Although they were risky ventures, I came away from them feeling like a terrible entrepreneur because I could only get them half-working. Half-working wasn't good enough in this world — to make a creative project survive, it either has to work one hundred percent or not at all. I was either a bold warrior or a skill-less failure. There was no participation award.

When I tried to move to the US for 99dresses, I had to get a special O1 visa because I had no university degree — as if a university degree were a proxy for my value and worth in society. For some reason, my parents bought into this paradigm too. When 99dresses failed, they tried so hard to convince me to return to university. According to them, university is the place you 'learn how to learn' — as if I couldn't figure out how to learn without the assistance of a huge institution, some textbooks and many terrible group assignments that clearly demonstrated why communism is a shit idea: I always ended up getting a high distinction for the group while my teammates drank beer and did nothing.

My parents also believed that university provided a safety net. I'm sure the US-based millennials of this world — many of whom are drowning in student debt — would laugh at that concept as they flip burgers for minimum wage, wondering why they spent years of their life and tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to receive a piece of paper. A university degree guarantees nothing in this rapidly changing market.

I knew, logically, that my father was wrong. I knew he was stuck in an old paradigm. I knew he meant well. I knew he just wanted to see me safe and secure. If I was stronger and more confident in myself, then maybe I would've shrugged and said, 'Okay, boomer,' and taken the drink out of his hand.

But he was my father, and I'd always craved his approval. I so wanted him to be proud of me like I felt he was proud of my siblings. Alex was a golden child — an orderly high performer who owned her own apartment and car and had a highly successful career as an executive at a fashion e-commerce company. My other brother, Hamish, had a nice, secure, well-paid job as a software developer in a fast-growing multi-billion-dollar startup. He'd joined a rocketship at the perfect time, and his stock options would probably make him a decent chunk of change in a few years unless something seriously fucked up. And my youngest brother — well, he was just graduating from university and beginning the hunt for his first full-time job.

And then there was me: the renegade. The one who wasn't content to live an orderly life. My parents both did their best to embrace my natural talents and support me on my journey in this world. I had entrepreneurial friends who'd started their ventures despite violent objections from their parents, and my mother and father were never like that. If I had a dream, they'd back my conviction. However, they also wanted to stop worrying about my ability to survive in this world. It was difficult for them to watch my projects grow and die, then for me to start something new all over again.

I heard a knock on my bedroom door. A strip of light spread across the wooden floor as my dad poked his head into the room. "I — I didn't mean to make you cry," he said awkwardly. My father had many talents — performing high-stakes surgery, fixing things around the house, making everyone laugh with a well-timed inappropriate joke, cooking a mean chili con carne. Dealing with emotions was not one of those talents. "I'm sorry, Nik. I didn't mean it."

"Yes, you did." I pulled my head above the covers. "It's okay. It's not your fault I'm upset. I wouldn't be reacting like this if I didn't subconsciously believe it on some level. You just struck a nerve. They're only words, anyway. I'll get over it."

"Oh... okay." He didn't know what to do. "I've got some chocolate in the kitchen. Do you want some chocolate?"

"No," I giggled as snot ran from my nose. "But thanks."

"Okay." He closed the door.