Every generation has heard it. Even as we grow up, trying to figure out who we are and what our futures might hold – worried enough that we aren't on the right track as it is – we're told that our youth is being wasted on us. Like I said, it's a message that has been passed from generation to generation. Our parents heard it, as did theirs, and so on. I'm fairly confident, however, that no generation has ever been so personally attacked as the millennials.
We are the generation that grew up entitled, the generation that is lazy because of participation trophies and cell phones. We are slaves to these phones and motivated to break out of our poor work-ethic only by an endless stream of compliments. If there ever was a generation that was wasting their youth, it's ours.
Unfortunately, I'm not willing to accept that.
We might have grown up with participation trophies and advanced technology, but we're also a generation with our own problems and our own dreams. We're a generation that is in love with the world, more eager to explore other countries and cultures than ever. We see our planet suffering and being destroyed, and we want to save it; not just its people, but its animals, and its mountains and glaciers.
While we're in college, older generations tend to look down on us, thinking that we are all like the students in Animal House or just a bunch of Ferris Bueller's looking to make every day one without work. Of course, as students, we know that is not true. Anyone that is paying thousands of dollars each semester would probably be perfectly happy to swear up and down that it's not true, eagerly waving 15-page essays or final projects in the faces of anyone who insisted that it was.
The reality is, thanks to student debt, we're pretty limited on what we can do with our time. And yeah, a lot of students do go to parties and bars on the weekends. But, that doesn't mean that's all college students do. We like music, and nature, and even bowling just as much as any non-college, full-fledged adult does. We also like traveling and going to concerts and eating really great food. Unfortunately, our wallets do not.
Odds are, if we're in college, we aren't traveling the world or saving it (we have degrees to earn, and loans to pay), but that doesn't mean we aren't trying to change it. And it also doesn't mean we have any small plans for our futures, either. Because we're certainly smart enough to look past the house parties and socials and campus events that we know will be a thing of the past soon enough.
We are studying to be architects, doctors, engineers and writers. We learn French, Spanish and Japanese in hopes of someday living in these beautiful, distant places. We work part-time jobs as full-time students to help pay off students loans or to fund our next great adventure.
Our generation is anything but lazy. We've inherited problems and we've built our own dreams. Our generation may be different than the ones that came before, but which generation isn't? It certainly doesn't make us unworthy of our youth, or unable to change the world.
