People have many complaints about new millennials, particularly from old generation folks. Millennials born around 2000 now have been called Baby Millenials or GenZ+ or iGen. Some complaints are:
- They always crave for the approval of others through social media, almost to the point of being pathological
- They are constantly wired, hence their attention spans getting even shorter, interfering with their ability for “deep thinking” to connect the dots to solve the real problems of the world.
The issue here is not about millennials’ complaints; who doesn’t have their faults and anyone can complain about them, if they want to. There are many things we can learn from them. Here is a look at some millennials who are realistic, innovative, confident, and their initiatives and thinking are changing the world. Some have launched successful apps delivering contraceptives to the doorstep to locating and tracking school buses. Here are some examples of their ingenuity:
- A 16 year old Akash Manoj has unveiled a prototype of a device that can non-invasively detect the risk of a heart attack, using specific cardiac biomarkers. He is being backed by AIIMS and IISc, Bengaluru, Manoj intends to commercialise it by the end of 2018. He got the idea when his grandfather succumbed to a silent attack.
- Sushant Singh in an interview in The Hindu dated 30th September 2016 revealed the preparations he did before playing the role of Dhoni in the eponymous film. Dhoni’s journey from ordinary railway ticket collector to renowned cricketer is inspiring. Sushant started off in theatre and got into any character by identifying all its similarities and dissimilarities and then work on the dissimilarities in order to become that character. As he moved in life, he changed his approach by not having an inflated sense of self so that he can start off with a clean slate for a role. To play the role of Dhoni, he figured out the person he is going to play and started thinking like him to the point where he behaved like him without thinking. This preparation took 13 months and he watched every single video of Dhoni and met Dhoni repeatedly. He asked Dhoni, how he looked back at his life and career, and just listened to absorb. Questions ranged from Dhoni’s thoughts, beliefs, fears and desires. Sushant gave a multiple-choice questionnaire with 250 questions, asking him things like what he would do in a particular situation. To look like Dhoni, he lost his weight to 70 kg from 89 and trained real hard at both batting and wicket keeping. While practicing Dhoni’s signature helicopter shot where he flicks his wrists in a circular motion, Sushant injured his ribs and was out of action for weeks. On the first day of the shoot, he wasn’t pretending to be him… he was
- At the opening dinner and media roundtable event for the Women’s Cricket World Cup, Mithali Raj, was asked by journalist to name her favourite male cricketer from among the India and Pakistan teams. She said:
- “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?” showing her assertiveness and gumption.
- Mithali Raj is the captain of the Indian women’s cricket team. She is the only female cricketer in the world to cross the 6000 runs in the ODIs. She is also the first captain in the history of Indian cricket to lead a national team to an ICC ODI World Cup final twice – 2005 and 2017.
- Another example is of Vineet Singh, who is playing the role of an aspiring boxer in Anurag Kashyap’s film Mukkabaaz. To play this role he went through 700 days of training, 2000 kms of travel and took many punches and with more than 200 injuries, according to The Hindu’s Metro Plus dated 2nd January 2018
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/vineet-singh-transformation-into-boxer-mukkabaaz
Developing Self - Some Positive Reflections 