Maybe We’re A Generation Of Narcissists Or Maybe We Are The First Generation To Live For Ourselves

A woman said to me last week, rather casually that she finds the current generation of women choosing to not have children narcissistic.

It was ten am and I hadn’t quite digested my coffee yet so I kind of just scrunched my face, unable to mask my confusion and disagreement with her statement.

The word narcissist is used with millennials as often as idiot and Trump was said in the same sentence during the elections.

In a world where we multi platform our lives online–running our own Facebook’s, twitters, Instagram’s and snap chats ware essentially self promoting the personal details of our days by the hour.

We document and share everything from where we have breakfast, what color our coffee is, how our hair looks–they only think we don’t yet do is document what our shit looks like.

I get how it may look like we are a generation that is self absorbed by the amount of time and energy we divulge into creating our personal blogs (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and brands.

We no longer write in diaries, we just update Facebook statuses.

Our grandparents and parents are horrified with the details that circulate the big bad internet wolf.

My grandfather is so private he doesn’t even like using his credit card incase it gets tracked, so the concept of me sharing the details of the conversation I have with the woman who gives me a Brazilian on my social media startles him.

Social media has become a context of who we are and how we connect and this is alien to many generations before us.

Are we addicted to social media?

Yes, probably.

Wait–yes, definitely.

There was a survey done that shows that “likes” actually release endorphins in your brain.

Every “like” is a verbal self esteem boost and compliment to our egos.

Maybe there are too many selfies running rampant on the web, maybe we over document our lives and maybe we’re addicted to social media–but, who cares?

How is documenting our breakfast classified as self absorbed and lacking empathy?

I am called narcissistic a lot, especially with my most viral poem titled “This is for the women who don’t give a fuck”.

That poem was written to give women and human’s permission to to live their truths and be authentic, to build their own box.

Some people who don’t live authentic lives and self sacrifice their dreams for what they felt they should do, are royally furious inside when they see someone choosing themselves, first.

I encourage people daily to step outside of the societal norms—to quit their degree and their job and leave their marriage if they are unhappy.

I support people in shedding the guilt around being self oriented, rather than self sacrificing.

I encourage people to say “no” and to set boundaries.

I push people to drop things that no longer serve them and pick up things that they do with everything in me.

I believe to master ourselves is to live our truths in all contexts of our lives.

I do what is authentic to me—what gives me joy and I work with people to create the same thing in their lives.

There is a difference between being clinically self absorbed (narcissism) and self oriented.

I think many of us have been so afraid to be self oriented and be called selfish for most of our lives that we have made a habit for living for our world and other people, and self sacrificed our real dreams.

Millennials are going, “Wait, what?” and doing differently.

We aren’t buying or drinking the Kool aide, we are inventing our own flavours and selling it to the man.

I think it’s bloody fantastic women are choosing to not be mothers and have children.

Just because a woman has a womb, it doesn’t mean she needs to use it.

Children, like everything else in this life are a choice.

I think it’s brilliant we are drowning in entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses doing what gives them joy.

I think its down right divine that people are giving themselves permission to leave their degrees, or flat out not get one and teach themselves.

I think it’s great that women are CEO’s and starting their own shows, and their husbands are the ones loving and supporting the family in the kitchen.

We are shedding societal should’s and stepping into authenticity and there are many who will rage and call doing what one loves being “selfish” and “narcissistic”, I truly think these people are just scared shitless that there are less and less sheep in our world and people are choosing and thinking for themselves.

Maybe we are narcissists, and maybe it’s just shocking to this world that millennials aren’t afraid to live for ourselves.