As we all know, The Great Recession these past few years has been a big problem, especially for us people who have graduated from high school. Being a young adult today has proven different than any other generation in history. We are reaping the benefits of what our ancestors worked so hard to build, and as it would seem, we are having a hard time trying to figure out what to do with all these options. I was reading the November 2012 issue of ELLE Magazine, and Amanda FitzSimmons' essay "Oh To Be Young", reminded us of a experiment most of us would remember from high school psych class: the jam experiment, in which it was shown that consumers were less likely to buy jar of jam if given a wide variety of flavors to choose from. This experiment exposed the concept of "choice overload" in that when faced with too many options, the brain becomes overwhelmed and, like a computer with too many windows open, freezes.
As this article showed, twentysomethings, also known as millenials, are experiencing the jam experiment on a far greater scale in life. In my fashion, what our generation lacks is direction. But not the strict, regimented direction our parents would drill into our heads as children: get good grades, go to college, get a job. In our day and age, there are many avenues to success and many definitions of success. Regardless of the direction we take in life, our moves should always be upward and positive. But how does one stay positive in order to keep on that upward moving track. We set up mechanisms for ourselves that help us to focus on our goals.
Think about this: Mechanisms are put in order to force things to happen; things that otherwise you might not be able to make happen at all. Individuals should always have a core purpose, and mechanisms reinforce that purpose. Its about converting that purpose into action and making things happen in your life. In my fashion, fashion is a sort of mechanism! I can attest to the dreaded "quarter-life" crisis FitzSimmons describes of developmental psychologist, Erik Erikson's theory of the eight existential dilemmas that mark the human life span. In between college graduation, and my first job out of college my confidence was dwindling because I had no idea where to go in my life. Thankfully, one thing that has always kept me positive and looking forward to working for success was fashion. In these hard times, fashion has always been my mechanism to keep positive and looking forward to living each day fully.
As FitzSimmons proclaimed in ELLE, she wishes there was a better way to understand and negotiate this time in our lives (a sentiment most of us 'millenials' probably feel at the moment). #IMFblog seeks to find ways in which we can do this. Using fashion, as I have expressed before, is a perfect way to stay positive and keep moving forward in life. Like Julia Roberts once said in Vogue, "Once I started dressing differently, suddenly I was different." Make sure to dress for the day, and carpe diem!
Look over some of the tid-bits of the article I picked out below, and see if you can relate to these observations about our current twentysomething generation.
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