COOKING MEALS FROM SCRATCH
GOING ON HOLIDAY WITHOUT YOUR PARENTS
DRIVING, PARTICULARLY DURING A TRICKY PARALLEL PARK
FIRST TIME YOU GO INTO YOUR OVERDRAFT (LOSES ITS ALLURE QUICKLY)
REALISING YOU CAN EAT OUT EVEN IF IT ISN’T A SPECIAL OCCASION
BEING IN THE SUPERMARKET AND REALISING YOU CAN BUY WHATEVER YOU LIKE
DEFROSTING A FREEZER
DRIVING THROUGH A CITY CENTRE AND BEING ABLE TO CONFIDENTLY STATE, ‘THAT USED TO BE A BLOCKBUSTERS’
LIKING COLDPLAY
BEING ABLE TO LEGALLY RENT A VAN
BEING TOLD TO TURN THE VOLUME DOWN BY YOUR NEIGHBOURS RATHER THAN YOUR PARENTS
IRONING YOUR FIRST SHIRT
HAVING A NIGHT OUT THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE PRE-DRINKING
THE FIRST TIME YOU REALISE YOU LIKE OLIVES
HAVING A COFFEE INSTEAD OF A DESSERT
HELPING YOUR PARENTS PICK UP SOMETHING THAT’S HEAVY
WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY AND WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO COOK YOU DINNER THEN REALISE THAT SOMEONE IS YOU
MAKING PEOPLE TAKE THEIR SHOES OFF BEFORE COMING INTO YOUR HOUSE
WHEN BANK HOLIDAYS BECOME A CHANCE TO CARRY OUT CHORES, NOT NURSE HANGOVERS
INTRODUCTION
I ONCE TOLD AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD TO GO FUCK HIMSELF
A few years ago now I told an eight-year-old to go fuck himself. That moment was unintentional and clearly unfortunate, but it would go on to help me haul myself from a malaise I had found myself in for a number of years. Like many of life’s significant events, I was worryingly unaware of its importance, as is the case with the majority of life-changing moments: applying for a job, meeting the person who goes on to be your significant other or even buying that leather jacket that remains, to this day, a real staple in your wardrobe. It was just another moment like all the others; in fact, minutes before, I was sitting backstage at yet another gig, readying myself to perform to a new group of strangers like I do every night of the week.
What was it then about that particular night that sticks so solidly in my psyche like an annoying bit of apple skin between teeth? The fact I swore in a child’s face certainly adds to the level of permanence afforded to that particular memory, but it’s not just the extreme embarrassment of the situation. Only last year I walked into a hotel room where a businessman was taking a shit, where I told him my full name and then left. Although that incident still haunts me today – and I’m assuming that businessman – it is this particular gig that always comes to me in my moments of solitude. In the shower, just before I go to bed, when I’m on a train with only a podcast and my own thoughts to keep me company. Boom! There it is. That little voice hidden in the depths of my mind pops in to quickly remind me of that evening.
‘Hello, Iain. Remember that time you told an eight-year-old to go fuck himself? You do? Oh good. Well, have a nice night.’
I certainly could have been in a better place, being recently single, technically speaking ‘out of work’ (though financially buoyant) and, most crucially, unfulfilled. That’s the big one. You ever felt like that? Even though on the face of it life is good – your work is tolerable, bordering on enjoyable, your social life is filled with interesting and entertaining friends, and your family are as supportive and loving as ever – for some reason there is that niggling feeling deep down in the depths of your soul that something’s not quite right, something’s missing. You feel like a selfish prick for even entertaining it; you have everything you’ve ever needed and so many people have made so many sacrifices so that you could have it, but ‘it’ isn’t enough and you can’t for the life of you work out why.
What the fuck even is ‘it’ and why can’t I just have ‘it’? ‘It’ is like The X Factor of life satisfaction, but none of us seem to have the Simon Cowell-esque ability to identify it correctly; it always seems to narrowly pass us by. There is nothing you can do to help identify it more clearly – literally nothing. I even spent a month with my shirt unbuttoned offensively low and my trousers pulled embarrassingly high. It didn’t help – I just got funny looks.
For years I was told by friends, family, school teachers, colleges and even social media that I was special and destined for great things. I’m fully aware that’s not unique to me, by the way. I’m sure you too have been awarded certificates at school and told how beautiful you are in Facebook comments, as we live in a world where praise is constantly heaped onto everyone. Despite this wall of positive encouragement, however, in the specific moment I swore at an eight-year-old, I just felt like another cog in the machine, another Starbucks-drinking, McDonald’s-munching face in the crowd.
To some of you this lack of fulfilment will resonate; to others, however, it will sound ungrateful, an odd note on which to start a book. I’m fully aware that many of you will be reading this on your holidays: you’ve found a sun lounger, bought your fruity cocktail, taken the obligatory photo of your legs with the ocean as their beautiful backdrop and posted it online with the sole intention of mocking your friends who are currently dragging their sorry asses into the office for another torturous Monday. You’ve then opened this book and thought, ‘Fuck me, this Love Island prick’s a bit down in the dumps.’ Fear ye not, my ITV2-loving amigos, for this book is about optimism and ‘living your best life’, as is famously said by tedious people on Twitter – and now me, apparently. Not to mention the story of me telling that eight-year-old to go fuck himself is in fact a bloody doozy – so there is plenty to look forward to!
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
Despite heavy reliance on my own personal experience – I mean, ‘myself’ is what I know best, the only thing I can truly call myself ‘an expert’ in – this book will not be an autobiographical romp through my life to date. I’ve not done enough stuff yet. You gotta think word count. I would really have to drag out that time I went caravanning with Pam and Bill in order to achieve anything other than pamphlet status. And no one wants to hear about that holiday. A boy called Craig chopped a wasp in half but otherwise it was largely uneventful.
Instead I’ll talk about my generation – millennials. They’ve got loads of stories. They’ll know loads of Craigs. Craigs who’ll have done things other than demonstrate serial-killer tendencies during a long weekend in Moffat. The millennial was born between roughly 1981 and 2002, basically (although not exclusively) old enough to remember what they were up to during 9/11 but too old to grasp the notion of watching young lads with mad fringes playing the computer game Minecraft on YouTube. It’s a generation famed – should the copious BuzzFeed articles be believed – for failing to grow up, never being able to properly ‘adult’.
That’s me, I’m like that, but why are we all perceived this way? If that’s also you then strap in. If it’s not then don’t you worry your non-millennial head. Most of the stuff I’m going to talk about here is universal and hopefully funny regardless of the digits you have etched onto your birth certificate. As well as talking about my generation, I will also talk to my generation, in a series of conversations with fellow millennials about their own personal journey through life, their hopes and fears, and the lessons they have learnt on their path to adulthood. A few of them have got well over a million followers on Instagram, so that will be bloody exciting.
I hope that through the process of researching and writing about my generation I will better understand how we work, and as a result better understand myself. Why was that night I swore at a child such a pivotal point in my personal development? Why does that precious ‘it’ always manage to slip me by no matter how much