Not all millennials will join the types of networks described in the previous chapter, but the majority spends much of its time online and, thus, is sucked into a world of comparison with others. Comparison is a problem for this generation. It is persistent— difficult to escape in our digital universe— and takes place in multiple ways. Access to constant opportunities for comparison creates a belief that success comes quickly, and that we can achieve our goals by understanding how others have achieved theirs.

Expectation of rapid progress is the source of considerable anxiety among today's young people and is heightened by the idea that age is of little significance in modern life. Worried that we are not doing enough in the early stages of our working lives— though also in the developmental stage of emerging adulthood— we arrive at a crossroads. My aim in this chapter is to critically examine the nature of comparison in modern life, after which we can move to an analysis of solitude, in Part III.

RUTHLESS COMPARISON

As part of a client project in 2016, I spent much of the year interviewing students, graduates and employers in science fields in order to better understand what it meant to them to be a scientist or, at the very least, a student of science. The client was a science faculty in a major North American public research university. Its deanery had grown concerned in past years about science undergraduates who did not adequately reflect on why they pursued science degrees. Many of the students viewed science as a means toward practicing medicine, science degrees being the usual entryway to medical school at Canadian universities.

Over time, it became apparent that interviewees struggled with comparison, rarely feeling like their achievements were ever enough. Comparison served as a barrier to contemplation and self- reflection, these kinds of activities seen as antithetical to progress— especially when friends and colleagues appeared to race forward in their lives. One particularly insightful interviewee described the problem as follows: