Yes, I sip coffee in a small local shop. Not because I'm a typical white girl coming for an over-priced, non-fat latte, but because I want to use the little money I have left over from putting myself through school to support a local business. I grew up watching countless coffee shops, bookstores, and record shops close, so I'm doing my small part.

I have my apple headphones in and look down at my glowing screen. I have matured in a culture where women are taught that making polite conversation with another urban coffee-shop goer can be unsafe or misconstrued as sexual interest.

I then stand at a train station in one of the five slightly-polished business casual outfits I own, reflecting on my day as an unpaid intern while I use my smartphone to register to vote. Temporarily glued to my phone, I accept my adherence to the digitally-dependent stereotype, but for a good reason.

Meanwhile, the middle-aged man next to me appears so exhausted that he can barely hold his briefcase. I think about his children who will soon be greeted by their dad who has no time for them due to tiredness from a stressful, elite business job. I however, am cast as naive for wanting something better someday.

Later, I come home to my on-campus apartment and start my job as an RA because school is impossible for me to afford today otherwise. My own mother, who put herself through college while working at Papa Gino’s sympathetically notes that it's harder for students today.

I grab dinner and bring residents to see a genocide survivor speak in our school’s auditorium. I take in culture because I am generally interested and want to learn from all people. This curiosity is juxtaposed with an ever-looming fear that I am not making a difference in the world.

As I walk home, I send an email at 10:00 PM without a second thought because I am taught that work doesn't end at five for people who want to make something of themselves.

The problem is I find beautiful meaning in my everyday, but that is being diminished by condescending assumptions that I only care about my yoga class, my favorite green tea, or my all-consuming love for free wifi.

To the older generations: it’s a different world today and it’s ours, but it’s also still yours. So from a generation that craves a revolution brought upon by togetherness, join us. Stop the millennial hate and help us address these modern challenges.