fearless

portrait of JJ

he came into the office in cobalt skinny jeans, ready to #werq.

he’s a southern boy, a superstar, a pint-sized perez with a penchant for color and blue sky dreams of owning his own birkin.

it’s his first job out of college, yet he owns client calls. he spins circles around some twice his age.

“i’ve got a plan,” he likes to say, with a scheming, twinkle in his eye. lolla VIP, check. dinner with friends, check. 90-day roadmap to world domination.

while we stood around in our baggy flannels, jean shorts and timberland workboots, spewing gen x angst and smelling like teen spirit, JJ dons his rainbow wings and flies.

after the invincibility of our 20s, the risk is settling into this thing called life—where settle may be the operative word, where dreams and passions are put out to pasture in exchange for expected roles and real-world responsibility.

we old dogs piss and moan about “those self-entitled millennials,” shaking our fists and longing for the good old days of grunge…but i can think of more than enough examples that blow that generational myth.

twenty-something techies who are taking silicon valley by storm. suzy orman fanboys sitting on a pile of apple stock (holla dodsy!).

they aren’t bound by barriers. they don’t retrench from rules. they don’t cling to jobs or roles or boxes that hold them in. they’re fearless.

instead of vilifying them, perhaps we should admire the ones that stand out. the ones that stand tall—with pure belief, in themselves and their destiny. like JJ, perhaps we should take a page out of the peacock playbook and sprout some wings of our own. with shoes like that, there’s nowhere to go but up!