Millennials tend to get a bad rap as being entitled or lazy. As a millennial myself, this would upset me often. I have seen and met many nice and hard-working people in my life who are around my age. I wondered where this idea that all millennials were entitled and lazy came from. Then it hit me as I was scrolling through my Facebook. I saw many pictures and memes that looked similar to this.
It seems that our generation has made up our own vocabulary for growing up and possessing adult-like skills. It is called adulting. According to the linguistics journal American Speech, the definition of adulting is:
1. to behave in an adult manner; engage in activities associated with adulthood
2. to make someone behave like an adult; turn someone into an adult
These seem like pretty solid definitions of the process of becoming an adult. So why are millennials still being blamed? It seems this term "adulting" has taking on a different connotation than the one defined by American speech. To get a good look at how millennials define this new term, I decided to look it up again through the ever-so-popular meme world.
As you can see, millennials seem to not be into this whole this whole adulting thing. It seems we want to be inhabitants of Neverland, never worrying about growing up. These memes seem to glorify that. It seems this adulting term wasn't created to show off our grown-up skills, but our lack there of. These memes show an adult as being able to get by in life with doing the simple tasks needed for someone to look to you as an adult. Shouldn't adulthood be more than that? Yes, the ability to do those tasks are important, but the focus shouldn't be on those things. God wants so much more for our lives than mediocrity.
We should also be focusing on other things. We should ask ourselves these questions: How am I growing mentally? Emotionally? Socially? Spiritually?
God meant for the process of becoming a competent adult to be more than just the ability to do your laundry and pay your bills. We should develop a knowledge of God’s Word and never stop trying to learn about it. We need to grow a heart for the Lord and the people all around us. We need to go unto the world and build relationships and share the good news. We also need to grow and develop our personal relationship with the Lord.
I'm not saying you'll wake up one day as a perfectly responsible adult with a perfect relationship with God. If my first year of college has taught me anything, it's that everything in life is a process. At the time, one of my professors who I thought was particularly tough gave my class what I believed was too much work for a freshman. Looking back, though, that class has taught me so much and it helped me improve as a student. Sometimes God gives us stuff in life that may seem tough and confusing, but in the end, He's using it to help us grow.
To all my fellow millennials, I encourage you to keep running the race and know that you are more capable than you have ever imagined, and God has great plans for you.
