Growing up, for many millennials, meant learning early how to run—and not just metaphorically. It wasn’t enough to fill time; every hour had to be mapped, every activity given purpose, direction. Two languages, a sport, music—because simply “playing” felt like waste. Children’s days ended up mirroring, in miniature, adult life: ordered sequences of objectives, progressions, milestones.
No rule needed to be written down. The atmosphere did the work: conversations with parents, quiet comparisons, selective admiration. The idea that a child might simply do something without standing out seemed incomplete, if not almost negligent. Being “good at everything” was never spelled out, but it was a constant, omnipresent standard.
Today, many of those children are adults. The logic hasn’t vanished; it has transformed. Work is no longer just work: it is narrative, a measure of self, tangible proof of existence. Even leisure carries the same grammar: reading, traveling, exercising, learning. Not neutral pleasures—every activity is a way to demonstrate, excel, endure.
Within this framework, personal value shrinks to performance. Unspoken but clear: you are what you can sustain, show, and carry forward. Every achievement doesn’t close a chapter—it relaunches one. More than a finish line, it signals a new starting point.
For years, the promise seemed straightforward: effort produces results, results produce stability. Reality, of course, is messier. Fragmented paths, unpredictable outcomes, discontinuous trajectories. The track still exists, but reading it requires both perspicacity and patience.
Yet the drive doesn’t diminish; it becomes harder to navigate. One runs, often without knowing where one will end up. In the gap between expectation and reality accumulates a subtle, quiet fatigue—weighty, though invisible.
Today, performance hasn’t faded; it has grown more ambitious, more visible. Doing is not enough: one must be recognizable, consistent, present. The race does not pause; its pace, its surface, its stakes change.
This is not a phenomenon exclusive to millennials. But for that generation, running was something to learn; for those who come after, it seems already a given. And perhaps, for them, the finish line is only the illusion of a pause.
(Cover photo: My Bed by Tracey Emin. Retrieved from The Saatchi Gallery web site, 19 June 2007. Copyright of the work presumed to be that of the artist, and of the photo to be that of the Saatchi Gallery, via Wikipedia)
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Eirini Lavrentiadou is an actress and singer, born in Thessaloniki in 1992. She lives in Florence, where she trained at the city’s Theatre Academy and the Fiesole School of Music. She has performed in classical Greek and European plays, worked with international directors and companies, and appeared in concerts ranging from opera to jazz. She contributes to Florence Daily News as a writer.