New World Order-- Are Gen X'ers to blame?

I watched a news segment on the new ways businesses are running to accommodate the Millenials in order to get the best out of their generation. The story discussed how the business world is beginning to realize a 9 to 5 in the office does not work for everyone and produces better outcomes if you can move these boundaries for employees. These businesses have had great successes with employees who now work remotely or work shifts or days.

These changes in the workplaces supposedly by Millenials,  the children of Generation X'ers. So I started to think are we to blame or thank for this generation and their new ways. I think so. When we chose to raise our kids we were the first generation to look and think-- maybe beating the shit out of our kids with switches and belts is not the way to get the best results. We thought maybe we will play with our kids. Maybe we will ask their opinions on things. Maybe we won't make them clean their plates.  We were the divorce generation. We wanted more for our kids.

I never thought my kids would be from a broken home.  I wanted to be a throw-back to my grandparent's generation of working through every problem. Not having disposable marriages. Then my marriage fell apart. Then I separated from my husband. And now I am looking at things in a whole new light. Our family has not broken just our marriage.

Eighteen years and many good times, I have to ask, how can we do this differently than our parent's generation? My parents eventually got it right, becoming friendly and being able to be at events together. But I want more. I want my daughter and son to see that we can move forward as a family in a new way. The family unit that we all used to know is gone. But it will just be different but not broken.  For one person, grandma is part of their family and that is normal. For the next family, daddy is the lone parent. And in another great granny is raising three great-grandchildren on her own. Two mommies can be just as great as the old standard of mom, dad, son, daughter, and spot.

What really matters is the love and time spent with the members of the family. You can live in a house with someone and spend zero quality time or you can see a parent on the weekends and have the best relationship.  It is all about how you spend your time.

Some of us are the parents of the Millenials and Generation Z. We raised them to look at the world differently. We taught them that the ways of the past do not have to stay the status quo. And they have taken our lesson and they are changing things. We have to quit complaining about their ways of enacting change and look to see how we can put some of those new ways in our own lives.

We do not have to fit in boxes designed by others. Our families, our jobs, our kids, us. It's not about thinking outside of the box. It's about getting out of the box and recycling or upcycling the box into something better.

What am I worth? (Synchronicity preview)

Many places in my life in the last few weeks someone has put some kind of value or asked me to put a number value on me as a person. It shook me to the core every time it happened. I am not something to be put into a numeric value. Maybe it scares me to think of myself as a cash cow. Put to slaughter for a price. One was for life insurance and disability insurance our yearly meeting with the same smiling face. She loves me I add more every year paranoid that someone will get hurt or goddess forbid die. I with having Epilepsy I constantly worry about my long term health. It's under control now, but I was told as a child I would outgrow it too. So here was the first place someone asked me to pick my big worth.

As I am applying for jobs or more like browsing the job market. I cannot say there has been much that screams LEAVE WHAT YOU HAVE! yet. But here is another place where they want you to say what you are worth. And it's some weird pissing game, that I don't understand. You don't want to put a salary too low and look desperate but you don't want to put too high either. But some people say over confident does win because it sells a demeanor that the upper management wants in an employee. I am just honest and put the amount I need to leave my current position for that position. I am not a good liar or negotiator. I am better to just put it out there and if you dig my vibe then we can work together. That is how I am playing this, I am looking for my bliss work related and I think it will find me when I find it.

My husband asked me what I thought I was worth for all the thoughts, ideas, jobs, all the potential in me what I could be worth. He had a number for himself and I waited and spit out some random number like $50,000 and I really have no idea where I came up with this number because I was just so taken back by the thought of quantifying my creativity and productivity into a number. Sometime since the birth of my kids, I had the revelation that the real currency in life was time. If we were to give people real gifts, it should be vouchers for our time and we should hold fast to meet face to face with people. Time is our most precious gift; One I have tried to give to my kids as often as they have allowed me. There have been people in my life I have been shamefully selfish with my time and my belly aches over those losses. But I have today. And I have time. I have no other value to speak of but I have time.