The millennial generation has a bad reputation.
We are the generation glued to the bright screens of our smartphones, fervently refreshing our twitter feeds and posting artfully retouched pictures on Instagram.
We do not have any manners. We are crazy, invincible, careless and reckless.
Millennials are lazy and have no motivation.
We do not have our own dreams or ideas.
We do not care about what is going on in the world, we do not know how to love.
All we care about is instantaneous; everything is fast and at our touch. If it is too far away, it does not exist.
Everyone knows there are two sides to a story and stereotypes often do not paint a true, vibrant and ideal picture.
We are the dreamers, we are thinkers and we are the future.
Millennials long for in-depth conversations, nights that never end and real change to come in the word.
Taking Buzzfeed quizzes, checking Facebook and posting to Instagram is ridiculously addictive, but it is not all we do.
We do read books. Yes, real books with soft covers and spines that have dog ears from our favorite parts that somehow made us connect; made us relived to feel.
We care about what is going on in the world, but we need new media and ways for the news to be spread.
We want truth and justice instead of lies.
We like learning about the drama of history and know we must learn from mistakes so that history does not repeat itself.
We want to make a name for ourselves, to make our families proud and to live the lives we dreamed.
We worry about the future, but have more hope for what is to come.
We do not have it easy, but we are thankful for everything that we have.
We are not entitled.
Student loans do not pay themselves, and many of us have jobs. We need to pay bills or help out with expenses.
A few entitled people cannot ruin a whole generation.
In a CBS “Sunday Morning” interview, Best-selling author John Green talked about teenagers and millennials.
Instead of nodding his head that this generation is doomed, Green said,“Yes, they are learning in different ways, but they are still learning, they are still reading, they are still thoughtful and I am inspired every day by their intellectual curiosity.”
As Green also stated, every generation of parents is worried that their children are the worst; privileged, lazy, reckless, etc. Yet this is nothing new.
Hopefully we will not be saying that about our own children and remember what it was like to be young.
We should remember how annoying it could be to be called a messed up generation by those that do not understand us.
We are lucky to be where we are and we have the opportunity to live out our dreams and learn from experiences just as other generations have for years. It is our time.
We can’t give a d*** about our bad reputation and prove them all wrong.
