“No, you’re the puppet! You’re the puppet!” is all I hear echoing in my apartment and I begin to question what I am even watching. We all have seen the memes and gifs that had made fun of our 2016 Presidential candidates and this last debate makes no exception.

As millennials, our society has chosen to believe that we are people that are entitled and lack communique, but it seems the generations before us has lost it entirely. Our latest debate is a prime example of the lack of communication we all have as a humanity – we all, in some sort of area in our life, have felt entitled to hurt others. It may be in our words, our actions, and sadly it may be in the actions we do not take or the words we do not say.

Even though Early Voting has begun and our options for presidential candidates will not change, we must keep in mind that as millennials and as humans, we are the only way that change will occur in our community as well as in our own lives. Each day we are faced with situations that we do not agree with or choices that we do not accept, but it is our responsibility to not let it harden us. We are the generation that has been forgotten and has been pegged as “the entitled," but we can change this next year. We must be aware that we may be less than what someone would prefer, but we are so much more than what they actually see.

For me, nothing is more important than empathy for each other because we are all fighting the inevitable battle. We must not define ourselves by our age, gender, sexuality, status, wealth, or career, but rather how we feel for one another. That is the only way things will become better. We all have the power to make our future better than the current and we also have the power to do so. We must keep in mind that everything we do is now our future and that one day we will hear the sweet words of, “because of you, I did not give up”.