When Millennials Learn to Live Aligned, They Will Realign the Whole of Society
I am often asked to explain what it means to “live aligned.” There are many answers. You can align your schedule to the sun (circadian rhythm). You can align your daily tasks to your goals through prioritization based on importance and urgency. But when I talk about living your life in alignment, I’m typically talking about aligning your actions, thoughts, and goals to your core purpose in this lifetime.
This assumes a few things. First, it assumes that your life matters—that the words you say and the actions you make affect the world in big and small ways, rippling outward in space and forward in time. Second, it assumes every person on this earth was born with some core purpose or value—something unique that only you can bring to the world. I deeply believe both of these to be true. You matter, what you do matters, and only you can matter in this way.
It is your responsibility to be you.
I further believe that we are all born knowing our purpose. We know who we are and why we are here. The structure and rules of the society we are born into push back against this knowing. They ask us to conform to the structure and to take the place of a cog in the social machine based on where and when we are born. I also believe it is part of the process of growing up that we reject that structure in favor of exploration, that we tap back into our inner knowing, and that we find our way toward reconciling the two. For some, this can look like finding how to express yourself within the social requirements of the age. For others of us, it means rejecting those requirements and forging a path all our own—working to change the structure of society itself.
And sometimes, there are more social-changers born into a generation than usual. I firmly believe this is the case for those of us stepping onto our purpose-driven paths right now.
The Responsibility of a Generation
The Millennial generation—spanning into the Xennials and the Zennials—is here to change the status quo. We are here to question, to transmute the generational trauma of corporatism and exclusion, and to shift the pendulum swing of society back toward inclusive progress. Funny, since we are also one of the generations most driven by external validation.
What does this mean?
It means we are in a unique position. It means that these unprecedented times are On Purpose. We are not meant to endure them. We are meant to transform them.
In the 1960-70s, another generation had the chance to shift the world, and they did push the swing of the social pendulum slightly forward. We saw big changes in how government was elected and structured, and in how the US government supported its people. But the pendulum swung back, and that same generation stopped pushing.
More recently discovered letters from the early 1800s indicate that a fair number of “founders” did not believe the slave trade should continue. Thomas Jefferson was quoted, though, as saying that these men had already done “enough” in seceding from Britain and establishing a new country, and that this task of ending human bondage would need to be left to the “next generation.” Further evidence of this belief exists in the original US Constitution, which declares the conversation of ending the “Transatlantic Trade” could not be reopened until 1808, when presumably the next generation of lawmakers would be in office.
Agin and again, we see the responsibility of social change passed forward. Slavery would not be ended until the Radical Republicans of the 1860s took on that responsibility from their forebears. Now, the responsibility of upholding democracy, continuing the work of civil rights movements going back to the founding of this country, and pushing the social equity pendulum further forward falls to us—the generation that straddles the Millennium and the days before and after the Information Revolution.
To Live Aligned
Living aligned to your purpose can feel very hard, especially in an age when we have been taught from a very early age to look outward for answers. And yet, know who you are and why you are here can only be found within. When you step onto the life path that is steeped in your purpose, the steps you take feel easy. When you learn to live in alignment not with what you are told should be but with what you know inside of you to be true, your path feels easier.
The work itself will not be easy. There will still be difficulty and obstacles to overcome, but your steps forward will feel easier, less strained. Your body will feel more at ease, less uncomfortable. You will feel the discomfort of change, but every cell in your body will sing the joys of being exactly where you are supposed to be—of being exactly who you are meant to be. It all starts with a single step toward the path created for your unique purpose.
Are you ready to begin?