I just came back from Thanksgiving break, one of the biggest holidays of the calendar year. It's great to sit around the table, enjoying good food with your family, and just catching up with one another. As I get older though, I've noticed something that is a pretty continuous theme.

People don't and won't talk about topics that make them or others uncomfortable. They won't talk politics, religion, or any "hot-button" issue. It's been a sort of taboo to talk about politics and religion at the dinner table, when you're out for drinks with friends, or just sitting around watching TV.

Or if people are talking about any of the three aforementioned, they get argumentative and only have one-sided issues. They can't seem to concede to the other side when they make a valuable point.

Everyone needs to realize that their opinion isn't the only "right" opinion. If you're going to talk about an important issue, you need to come with substantiated facts, not information from BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, or the Onion.

If we're going to have the uncomfortable conversations, we need to come up with reasonable, long-term solutions. We need to come with information that is achievable, not something far-fetched. Rome was not built in a day, and certainly, these issues can't be resolved in one swift move.

We need to have these uncomfortable conversations. We need to talk about politics, religion, legislation, LGBTQ+ rights, gender and race discrimination, police brutality, sexual assault, and so much more.

We can't expect anything to change if we can't at least have a conversation. Liberals need to stop attacking conservatives, and conservatives need to stop attacking liberals when they have differing beliefs. Nothing will ever change if we have bitter party-line debates. Bipartisanship is vital in order to achieve change.

As Millenials, we are probably the most apathetic and complacent group of the population when it comes to having these conversations. Millenials go into the polls, uninformed, and barely knowing anything about state and national candidates besides what is shared on BuzzFeed, Twitter, and Facebook.

We'll talk about meaningless, short-term conversations that won't have any meaning ten years from now. There are incredible young leaders in our state and in our country. We are the generation that can make a difference and make a positive change.

No one ever got anywhere with complacency; be relentless and demanding. Be informed. Talk about the uncomfortable.