Dear Millennials,
I thought I would write you a letter that, for once in your life, isn’t criticizing you on your vast laziness or destructive dependence on technology, neither is it reprimanding you for your repulsive tolerance or outlandish sense of entitlement, nor is it giving you an alphabetically organized, bulleted list on how disappointing you are and how you are single-handedly going to run this great nation into the ground — I know you get enough of that already (or at least I know I do).
This letter is telling you two things: 1. Stop listening, and 2. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Disclaimer: Don’t be stupid. Listen about Napoleon and The Vietnam War. Listen about derivatives and anti-derivatives. Listen to your parents when they tell you they love you. Listen to things like that.
What I’m saying is don’t listen to the negative things people have to say about you. The things that resonate and damage. The hurtful and unkind. I know it hurts to live in a world where you are constantly being criticized and doubted, and I know that it hurts even more when you start to believe it. Yes, we are constantly criticized for being too emotional and too sensitive, but I’m here to tell you to cry and scream and kick and do whatever it takes to fight for yourself in a world telling you that you should be something different than what you are.
Just because you didn’t pave the way for suffrage does not mean you aren’t pioneers. Just because you weren’t forced into war and destruction when you were 18 years old doesn’t mean you aren’t brave. Just because you didn’t march with Martin Luther King Jr. or stand by Mahatma Gandhi doesn’t mean you don’t know how to stand up for things that matter. Just because you didn’t create the vaccine for polio or the discover the Theory of Relativity doesn’t mean you aren’t brilliant.
Because of generations before us, we don’t have to worry about these things — women can vote and war has settled and rights have been given and things have been discovered that make our lives so much easier and yes, we are grateful. But the world is constantly changing, meaning, we are never going to be like our parents or grandparents, and it’s about time someone realized that.
I’m not saying that there’s nothing you should work on, you definitely have some low points that could use attention. Publishing every moment of your day on social media probably isn’t a healthy thing to do, and protesting and criticizing the people who risk their lives for your freedom is also pretty counteractive.
I’m just so sorry that you’ve had to hear these things about you for so long. I’m sorry that your voice is constantly being dismissed as invalid. I’m sorry that every morning you wake up you are being undermined and underestimated. I'm sorry that you have to listen to all the awful things people in generations before us, and more prominently, people in our own generation, have to say about you. You’re not bad people. You don’t ruin everything you touch. You’re not stupid or ungrateful. No matter what they say.
But you have got to stop feeling sorry for yourself and using what people think of you as an excuse to act in the way they want you to act. Instead, do what you do best and prove people wrong. Surprise people and be unapologetically yourself. I know you know what you’re capable of. I know you know how brilliant you are and how compassionate you are. I know you know how strong you are and how determined. I know you know how amazing you are as well as your endless potential. So don’t let people tell you who you are and don’t let people define you.
This is your generation and your time. Make it your own, and make it matter.
Sincerely,
A child of Generation Y