The Price of the Millennial Dream

If you were to ask the typical Millennial what their dream lifestyle would be, chances are they’ll paint a beautiful picture of a life spent earning money doing what they love doing, if not earning money passively while they concern themselves with doing what they love doing. Why are we faulted for this way of thinking when we were brought up to believe this though?

In any case, while there are indeed many Millennials who have decided they’re going to pursue this dream or die trying, so to say, some very interesting developments come to the fore with regards to the price tag slapped on this dream.

It’s possible

The reason why I can confidently proclaim the Millennial dream to be possible is because there are indeed some Millennials who are making it happen. There are Millennials who have ditched the rather restrictive ways of the establishment and have somehow found a way to make a functional living and sometimes even a good living pursuing income channels which either fall directly in line with their passions or complement those passions. Do I have to say it? Traveling is one of these passions a lot of Millennials seem to inherently harbor and so they simply cannot be satisfied with that one vacation a year offered by the typical corporate working structure.

I suppose a perfect example of this is a certain group of people who refer to themselves as Digital Nomads…

There’s a big price to pay

If the quintessential Millennial dream was to be put in monetary terms by way of what it costs, it’s undoubtedly a very big price to pay. Just consider the cost of a mere plane ticket to fly across the world to the likes of Thailand as one of many Southeast Asian countries making for a hot spot for so called Digital Nomads. Sure, there are means and ways around it, but you’ll probably need to book and pay for an onward or return ticket, which is some upfront money you could have rather redirected towards covering the admittedly low cost of living in parts of the world like Chiang Mai in Thailand.

The big price is often only associated with kick-starting this dream Millennial life though, as maintaining it when you have momentum is a lot easier and cheaper.

Money isn’t the only medium of exchange with which to pay for this dream

There’s a young lady from the UK who along with her boyfriend live out their flavor of the ultimate Millennial lifestyle dream through house-sitting in exchange for what makes for a roof over their head. They get to lodge for free while the owners of the house get the services of a couple of caretakers out of the deal, proving that the dream doesn’t necessarily have to be paid for with physical currency.

Grossly underrepresented authenticity

Lastly, the typical Millennial who manages to achieve this dream often has to pay the price of going through a lot of instances where they’re chasing dead-ends. There is a lot of promise by way of fast-tracking this dream, for a fee of course, but those promises often turn out not to deliver quite what was advertised.