Lifestyle

How I Got Over This Generation's Epic Party Culture Mentality

by Alex Schnee

Everyone likes to have a good time on the weekends, right?

After a long few days dealing with jobs and the stresses of living as a member of Generation-Y in general, one of our favorite things to do is to break out the alcohol and hit up the nearest (and sometimes the worst) club.

But what happens when you get tired of doing that every weekend? What if you start to realize that going out is not as fun as it once was? If you're only living for the weekends and the hangovers they bring, what are you really living for?

We’re a generation of partygoers and weekend warriors; we're always up for a Friday at the local club, only to get hammered and wake up feeling disgusting the next day.

We save up our money and our energy all week for that one night where we can go out and “let loose.” Pretty soon, one weekend starts to seem identical to the next; we’re surviving on superficial highs and trudging through our lows.

I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of getting tired of it. It just seems to me that if we are going to start living, it should be for more than the weekends, and for more than a few hours where drama is rampant.

Dear friendships have broken up over too much to drink or a night where you are fighting over some random stranger at the bar. The worst parts of ourselves always come out when we have too much to drink, and our relationships with our friends often suffer for it.

It’s easy to get caught up in the drama when it is right in front of you and you have had a shot or two; it’s much harder to stomach it the next day when you realize that you have to live with your actions.

The same goes for when you are meeting new people at the bars or clubs. I’m trying to remember the last time I heard someone say that he or she met an important person who was significant while sharing a G&T at a busy club.

The truth is, it’s hard to meet someone authentically that way -- which isn’t to say I haven’t had those weeks and weekends where I wake up feeling like my head is going to fall straight onto the floor when I stand up.

It was fun the first few times to have the option of going to some other locations in town other than the local coffee shop. It was fun to be able to share related stories about times when things just kind of got weird and you were able to laugh about it the next morning.

But after a while, I found that I just didn’t enjoy it as much. It took a severe beating on my paycheck, and I wasn’t learning or growing from this kind of behavior.

I still think it is fun to go out with my friends every now and then, but I’ve personally taken a step back from this vicious cycle that our generation celebrates in songs and in our culture.

I’m not becoming a better person from it and it takes away from the time I could be doing something to improve my life and who I am as an individual.

Drinking and partying shouldn’t be a regular weekend thing; it’s not meant to be. The more we live for weekends, the more the other days in our lives suffer for it.

We’ve been given some amazing opportunities as members of Generation-Y, and it seems to be a shame to disregard them for a night out that no one will remember anyway.

Photo Courtesy: Tumblr