To Our Older Generations,
We are not ruining your or our future. We are growing adults just like you were 30 years ago, adjusting to society's changing world. You expect more from us than what was expected of you, and you pass judgments on how we go about accomplishing YOUR goals.
We are 20 and thriving in our life, so please listen and try to understand.
Some of us skipped the whole college life, and that is not wrong of us. We had the ambition to live our life away from school. We applied to seven plus jobs that we needed to pay our own bills for our own necessities without the help of you. We are struggling and have anxiety every day from the thought of failing, but we wake up, get up and do our job with or without a college degree. We may be fighting to live every day but eventually, we will be at the top of the food chain. We will be able to look back and know we did everything in our power to get to where we will be on our own.
There are some of us that did go to college. We take out loan after loan, with grants upon grants, and applying for scholarships that we may not even qualify for. With that heavy weight of feeling like we are down right dirt poor and will be for the next 37 years because of school debt, we have to study. A lot.
If you think we just party and sit aimlessly staring at Netflix, we don’t. We have some satanic professors who truly believe their class is our only and top priority, but we have at least 4 more classes. We have studying, homework and a lot of crying to fit in before we go to sleep, so do not confuse our hard-work with laziness.
We sure as hell drink, party and stay up to the crack of dawn watching Netflix. Becoming an adult is creeping up on us faster than we all anticipated, and it would be our pleasure to preserve our years of being youthful. We are not alcoholics or people who aren’t aware of our future. We are 19 to 22-year-olds figuring out what we want in our life, who we want to be or who we want to be with later in life. Before we have to seriously settle down and worry about the rest of forever, let us have our four to six years of careless irresponsible fun.
“Dating isn’t like it used to be,” and you are absolutely right, but we are not the sole reason. Your accusations on the reason for the proper way to date is not because our generation relies on technology. We all rely on that technology that our generation and your own have created. This new and upcoming society can only thrive in a technology-based world, and sometimes that is the only way we can date. It is unfortunate and we do wish divorces weren’t as common as they were, but do not put blame on only us.
Some of us neglected our responsibilities, and some of us became money hungry monsters. No one is perfect by any means, so please drop the pointing fingers directed at us.
If we want to travel to Barcelona for a year instead of college, then let us.
If we want to stay out late on a Wednesday instead of staying in and being “responsible,” then let us deal with the consequences.
If you want us to solve a problem in a non-traditional way, then let us put use to our innovative minds.
We appreciate the hard work you put into changing our world and trying to help us thrive. We really do. When it comes down to you criticizing how we live and work, though, please do not try to change us.
We are only this youthful and mind blowingly innovative for a short period of time, and we plan on using this short time at our disposal. We love deciding the way we live, and, by all means, follow our lead. We genuinely hope you can see the success and freedom behind our madness and learn to appreciate it.
Thriving and surviving in this big changing world is what we do best.
