grades are everything, learn this, be the best, life is competition, you need a sport for your college applications!

go to college, go to the best college, go in the most debt for the best college!

work hard, work even harder, sacrifice everything for your career, grin and bear it as you are continually passed over for promotions, downsized, rightsized, understaffed — but it could be worse!

go back to school for a masters, a PhD, just to get where your parents would have gotten for going to college, constantly worry about the cost of things that should be reachable for everyone like childcare and housing and healthcare and your awful student loans, but it will pay off!

work more, strive for work-life balance but what that really means is always be reachable, optimize yourself in every way, make sure you cultivate your image, keep your body in perfect shape, be the best at everything you do, leisure is laziness, don’t forget to put money in your 401(k)!

optimize your sleep, optimize your family, optimize your wardrobe, outsource everything, except for parenting - you have to do that all by yourself!

be a brand, be yourself, be funny, be attractive, don’t be a b*tch, don’t rock the boat!

try harder and eventually this broken system will work for you…

…and other lies we were sold.

Also know as: Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen

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