I am in my twenties. I have heard just about every criticism surrounding my so-called "millennial" generation. On the other spectrum, I have watched people listen curiously on twenty-somethings conversations about their weekend adventures and casual lifestyle. Many people won't argue the notion that thirty is the new twenty, and this decade is just an extended pre-adulthood. Some are fans of this concept, maybe because they rushed their lives too quickly and are just living vicariously through us. Others think we are wasting our time and setting ourselves up for failure. Which is it?

We are told this is the decade to explore, to go on adventures, to take risks, and to never settle. But how are we supposed to do that when our unpaid internships and part-time jobs only afford us a weekend at Angry Ale's? How are we supposed to explore and go on adventures without neglecting our career and educational goals? How do we "not settle" for anything less than the best when sometimes you just have to pay your dues to work your way to the top? I am aware of this false reality culture is selling me and my generation, yet I still feel like sometimes I am living out my twenties wrongly because of it.

I have been told that millennials think everything gets handed to them. I have heard that we think an opportunity will just fall in our lap one day. I would like to argue this. Personally, I think my generation is very aware of the work that is required to be "successful." But I think while we are putting in the work, we are simultaneously trying to appease the spotlight placed on us to be "wanderlust" and "exciting." We care about making the most out of this decade experience-wise, just as much as we do career-wise. On social media, everyone my age is having fun, but every single millennial I talk to is stressing over school, jobs, and normal life issues, too. If anything, the pressure is at its highest for those in their twenties to have the best of both worlds.

It sounds like a superficial concept to care about, and you're right, it is. But I think we have to ask ourselves, are we responsible for it? Growing up, I can count on my hand adults who told me to not rush my life, to take my time, and to be selfish while I still can. I can turn on my TV or open my laptop and see visual reinforcements of this unrealistic reality. At the same time, I can hear in the back of my head teachers and grandparents reminding me that nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.

Maybe the solution is deciding not to care about looking like we are happy, and instead focusing on actually being happy. But that sounds cliché, and I am sure if it was that easy, I wouldn't be writing this right now. Instead, we can start by acknowledging that while the experience of travel and fun is just as important as the experience of hard work, sometimes these things happen at separate times, and that's okay. Where we end up won't matter as much as how we got there. At the end of the day, the fun experiences and the life lessons we picked up along the way are essentially what makes us, us - a pretty rad generation.