Hopeful or hopeless?

So, I'm sure everyone's read about the "latte effect," that economic term that's been banded about for the last decade to explain the relatively recent tendency of middle class North Americans to fritter away money on daily non-essentials rather than save and invest.

I remember a lecture in high school where my counsellor told us how much money we would have thanks to compound interest if we could just save that 5 dollars a day we spent at Starbucks.

Well, anyone who knows me that I'm hopeless with money. I don't even have a wallet. Really. What's the point of a wallet if it just contains receipts, anyways? Everyone warned me about the dangers of credit card debt. Of course, the second thing I did when I was 19 (the first being buying a beer) was to sign up for a credit card on campus. And....another one. Just google "instant gratification" and "generation y" and hundreds of articles will pop up discussing how my generation (yes! just made the cut for Generation Y, apparently) forgoes saving and working hard to achieve the "American Dream" in favour of....yes, instant gratification. Yes, we are in the era of text messages, fast food, fast...everything.

I actually am the opposite of fast. Anyone who would spend a morning happily reading the New Yorker at a coffee shop or perusing a farmers' market for the perfect heirloom tomatoes is obviously not in too much of a hurry. However, I epitomize my generation in the financial department. In a Women Studies and Media class in college, I made a zine which explored the fatalistic and self-destructive tendencies of the generation that came of age in the 1990s.

I used my 10 year old crush, the character of Troy Dyer from Reality Bites (hey! I was ten) as an example of the fatalistic tendencies that characterized the 1990s generation with quotes such as: "There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a quarter-pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt."

In the post-post grunge era, ideas like this have become seriously cliched. But, when I was a preteen/young teen, movies like Trainspotting and books by Douglas Coupland were a part of my cultural upbringing. It was all about the experience, not the future, baby. Let's not even delve into the self-destructive tendencies of the grunge era, since I'd rather not beat any dead horses today (I am a vegetarian, after all).

I had a relatively idyllic childhood. I love my Mom, Dad, and sisters (especially now that we don't fight over clothes), and I grew up in a nice suburb, in a nice house, on a nice street, with an awesome pool. My Mom and Dad have always worked hard to provide for us and, I suppose, our family, albeit Canadian, epitomized the upper middle-class American dream. So, why am I not pursuing this dream for myself?

I have never had any aspirations of a life beyond 25. When I was a teenager, my goals in life consisted of moving out of the suburbs, travelling, going to shows, getting an apartment downtown, and reading lots of books. Basically, all I've ever wanted was to have fun experiences and a good time. I've never been able to picture myself with a house and family. Maybe this comes from living in a time of relative economic abundance and political freedom.

My fear of commitment extends to future goals.

After watching lots of ads on TV telling me that I can start a Registered Retirement Savings Plan for just 25 dollars a month, I made one monthly payment of 75 dollars.

Of course, 3 weeks later, it was Friday and I had seven dollars in my bank account, so of course I went to the bank to attempt to withdraw from my savings plan in order to fund weekend plans. That was my last sorry attempt at saving for the future.

The only time I can motivate myself to save is if I have big plans within the next 6 months- travel, school, or moving. For me, those little daily indulgences that fritter away my retirement are what make life worth living. I personally wouldn't want a house in suburbia if I couldn't afford to buy brie, wine, and records on a Sunday or pay for beers and a show on a Thursday.

Maybe this is partially due how house prices have skyrocketed in Vancouver over the last decade. With the median house price in Vancouver approaching 1 million, owning a home seems like a pipe dream. Of course, salaries have not kept up with the inflation. Due to various economic factors (deindustrialization, two income households, etc.) that I'm really not qualified to discuss, owning a home in the Pacific Northwest seems to be restricted to the wealthy.

When I told my Grandma how much I spend on groceries and dinners out, she was absolutely shocked. I admit it, I waste money. I have expensive tastes. Somehow, meatloaf and potatoes just doesn't appeal to me as much as a salad of arugula, pine nuts, blue cheese, and avocado.

For whatever reason, it's hard for me to envision my future. My dreams have always been a bit left-of-center; I could see myself banging away on a typewriter in Paris in 20 years or living in a house with an orchard in the middle of nowhere, but I just can't picture myself driving a minivan.

Perhaps this fatalism comes out of growing up in an era when the world seems to be on the brink of environmental disaster. When you look at the projected effects of global warming in 10 years, it's difficult to imagine having children.

For whatever reason, perhaps these little indulgences that deliver instant gratification are really just a coping mechanism to distract us from the apparently imminent combustion of the earth.

When I look at documentaries on the 1960s social revolutionary era, I find myself on the verge of tears (yes, even cynical unromantics cry) at the heartbreaking idealism apparent.

I would love to feel that kind of optimism that the world is going to change. Hell, I'd love to feel the kind of optimism about love that the two Columbia students who wed in the midst of the overnight sit-in at Columbia in the 1960s must have felt. It makes me feel nostalgic for an era I never even experienced.

Instead, what characterizes my generation is a kind of tired cynicism. Maybe we all just have unrealistic expectations. If I had been born fifty years ago, I probably would've been married 4 boyfriends ago (although the thought is horrific). I wouldn't have had any illusions about spending my twenties searching for a "soul mate," I would've just looked for a good provider and stuck it out without any searching for something "exciting".

Instead, I find myself wondering if this is it? I frequently say that I'm a total unromantic, but maybe the problem is that I am too much of a romantic. Don't tell me you haven't gone looking for your own "Before Sunrise" moment in Europe. Something about a night spent chatting over wine on a Greek ferry or up by the Sacre Coeur just makes it so much more romantic than a date at a coffee shop in the Pacific Northwest. And sure, I've had amazing nights on travels where I've stayed up all night talking and dreaming about moving to a new city to be with this amazing new person....but, maybe, just maybe, everyone gets a little boring after a while?

I always thought that one day I'd meet a cute boy who was funny, well-read, unpretentious, intelligent, and laid back. That we'd both like to play scratchy records, go for beers, go on hikes, go out dancing, watch foreign movies, and support our local Community Supported Agriculture. And that he would be the type of person who liked his own freedom and his own personal and physical space to explore his own interests- and allow me mine. Someone with who you could spend an entire rainy afternoon inside playing music and reading and writing and not even need to talk. And sometimes we'd go out together, and sometimes we'd go out by ourselves. And we would like to travel and go on adventures and be spontaneous enough to move to Europe, just because we felt like it. And of course, we would be crazy in love with each other. I told my Mom all of this, and she told me those were a lot of unrealistic requirements. True, true.