Why Are Millenials Dying?

My day job is running a cool software company that transforms public data into actionable insight.  I write a weekly blog that analyzes issues around community health and postsecondary education. These past few weeks I have been writing about the alarming trends in the mortality or death rates. Last week I wrote on the causes of death that have spiked up in recent years which include external causes such as substance abuse and behavioral disorders. This week I wrote about the death rates among ages 15-44 which have spiked in recent years, and especially the 25-34 year old age group which has spiked 19% from 2014-2016 as noted in the following graph. There is an associated video blog on the topic.

As the parent of three millennials, I was staggered by this, but not totally surprised. Why is this generation in essence killing themselves over just a three or four year period?  My prayer is that these thoughts spur yours and cause you to reflect.

• This generation is the first full social media generation. There are some really good things to like about social media. It has enabled me to reconnect with old friends for example. But it is not social and it has rapidly devolved into a platform for shouting my opinion. I believe it has ruined the ability to practice empathetic listening. We as a culture have rapidly lost the ability to listen to others. Terry Pluto wrote an excellent article where he deemed this the age of rage.
• Millenials by and large that I talk to (I am also the parent of three of this generation) have a very strong interest in making the world a better place. But they are also the same generation that expects rapid results and they become impatient and frustrated when they can't effect change. Because millennials seem to be less interested in filling gaps with tangible things, this breeds a deep self-reflective cause of frustration. 
• We as a culture simply no longer take time to reflect and meditate. Deb and I were just discussing this today. My phone cries for my attention. I get deeply busy, but I lose a little piece of cognitive awareness and self-reflection with each battle for my attention.  
• But I believe the biggest reason by far is this generation is the first to believe that a personal, creator God has no interest in them and they have no interest in a personal, creator God. The most recent Pew study cites a large rise in "Unafilliated" rise in religious identification. They are the "None" generation as Andy Stanley calls them. 

It comes down to a set of foundational beliefs that occur in a critical order.

• A belief in a personal God who created me and gave Himself up for me 
• A priority in building into that same relationship
• Because of the vertical relationship with a holy God, there comes a priority on horizontal personal relationships with others who are created in the same image. 
• A focus on listening empathetically (something that I am working on). This is why Jesus said the first and foremost commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself". 
• Putting a priority on anything that might drive a wedge in either of those relationships. For example, while I have an opinion on the events of our day, I try to stay away from anything that will alienate or drive a wedge in those relationships.  

99 Homes and the Moral Line

Recently watched the movie 99 Homes. This is a painful movie to watch and it is not the type of movie you would likely watch twice. Spoiler alert if you plan on watching the movie. The story-line is about a young unmarried father (Dennis Nash played by Andrew Garfield) who lives with his young son (9 something) and his mom in a house that gets repossessed. Nash then in turn, because he is so good at so many things and in desperate need of money, joins the real estate company of the slick man (Rick Carver played by Michael Shannon) who repossessed his house. Along the way, he continues to do shadier and shadier things. It was hard enough to evict people from their homes, but then there were the numerous ways they continued to stretch and then outright cheat the system.

At the very end there was a moral line that Nash could not cross. What was intriguing to me was his realization that the line simply carried too much human cost. His mother had moved out with his son and there was another family that would be forever damaged by his action. So he briefly crossed that moral line, confessed it, and the movie ends abruptly. We are left not knowing what happens after that and I think that was intentional.

I had two major takeaways from this movie. First, moral lines are like boundaries. When we keep moving them, the lines get easier and easier to cross and the size of the offense gets greater and greater. Exaggerating leads to small lies, which lead to bigger lies. When you get away with one, it seems easier to break bigger ones.

Second, there are always consequences. Early in the process, the offense was depersonalized. Nash was cheating the "system" or the "government". There are no faces. But as the lying and the moral line got further crossed, there was a personal toll. In fact, every moral offense has a personal toll even if it is just to yourself. That is the minimum. Then it works it's way outward. That is what happened in the movie. The lying and the cheating revealed itself over time and those closest bore the cost.

I have to catch myself in the moment when I am prone to even the smallest lie. I have to nip it in the bud.  It is so easy to start and so easy to continue going. I have even started to tell someone a lie or exaggeration and stopped confessing it on the spot. I do that not because I am so moral (because I am definitely not) or because these lies would hurt the other person, but because I know it will hurt me.