Lately, it's been impossible to avoid the comparisons between generations. Baby Boomers are hitting retirement, Generation X is sliding into middle age, and us Millennials are desperately trying to figure out what our twenties are supposed to mean. It's pretty typical that the older folks throw shade at us twenty-somethings: we're stupid, naive, self-righteous, and any other insult you can throw at a young person. However, the one I've never been able to take is "entitled." With so many friends struggling with debt, lack of job opportunities and feeling the squeeze against the middle class, entitlement could not feel further from the truth. Well. Most of the time.

I woke up today in a panic. I had an article to write for a blog I'd only just heard of and had less than a day to do it. Somewhere between shaking off the lingering high from the joint I'd smoked before bed and trying to find my cat, I discovered that ants had infested the top floor of my building. Maude's food dish was swarmed and pulsing. What followed was an ant-massacre comparable to a war crime. Running around my dingy apartment in my three-day old underwear crushing, drowning, and chemically spraying every ant I saw. My blood was boiling. Meanwhile Maude the cat was in a sour mood most likely due to lack of ant-free food compounded with the numerous burdens cats worry about. The apartment is hers after all.

After my rampage, I took a deep breath, covered my shame (for I am gentleman), and walked to a coffee shop to begin what was definitely going to be a clear-headed article. In the few hours I had before Kendo class (think Japanese fencing), I managed to bust out a rough draft that I had no desire to return to. Rather than taking a deep breath or putting anything into perspective, I fumed at today's luck and lack of general goodness. I blamed the blog which so unjustly asked if I would like to write for them and then gave me all the necessary resources. I blamed my job where I work part-time as a barista. It was obviously draining my mental energy and thus the reason I'm still an amateur writer. Then I blamed those god damned ants (that's not a joke, fuck those guys).

Confident that I was a victim of a hard life, I grabbed my Kendo sword and hopped on the blue line to take me to Kendo. There I could focus, take out my frustration with martial arts and pretend I was a samurai. Then the conductor lazily announced that the train was shutting down and there would be no $5 ride so Andrew could go to Kendo (he said that!). He kicked everyone off downtown and an hour away from my class, which was to start in ten minutes. It was too much. As everyone exited, I started to fume. I paced around the block, knowing I was missing my one stress relief, that ants were raiding my apartment like a Mongol horde, that my cat was irate and I still had a fucking article to finish. Then I did what anyone might. I called my mom and whined. She listened patiently as I ranted and raved about the difficulties of my life and offered comforting words. Then I was overcome with a distinct feeling: I'm a spoiled little asshole. Please picture that both literally and figuratively.

I'm not sure what exactly did it. Maybe it was when I realized I was in public, yelling on the phone with a sword in my hand because Trimet wouldn't bend to my will; or maybe I noticed I was a twenty-five year old man crying to his mom about how he didn't get to go to samurai class today. Either way the words "entitlement," "privilege," "solipsism," we're flashing like neon in my head. I once read somewhere in an interview with a Russian author that Americans get depressed with life because they expect it to be good to them and are disturbed when it isn't. Many Russians on the other hand are aware that life can be miserable but learn to celebrate when it proves the contrary. There's some truth in that, at least for me. Life's pretty not-bad most of the time and compared to the rest of world (and human history for that matter), that's about the best you could ask for.