Millennials Misunderstood
Millennials are found to be lazy and narcissistic. They expect everything to be handed down to them as if they are entitled to it. Older generations picture us sitting on a couch with our feet up in the air, starring like a zombie into our screens on our phones, while taking selfies every five minutes, demanding our boss to give us a raise. If only the people who judge us knew how hard we really have it in today’s world. Liz Zarka’s 2013 article entitled “Generation Me: The Millennial Generation’s Obsession with Being Unique”, from The Daily Clog, states her beliefs that Millennials are more focused on ourselves verses helping our planet. She assumes we are self-absorbed, conceded, and only care about fame and do not care about changing the way people see us. However, I believe the millennials are an admirable generation because we can multitask, we see the value in higher education, and we are aspirational.
Being able to maintain more than one thing at a time has helped Generation Y accomplish our task in a timely manner. It’s a great attribute we have, considering older generations think we are incapable of successfully completing a task that was given to us. A 2011 article entitled, “A Millennial Says: Stop Trashing Us” ,by Maria LaMagna, a web producer for Bloomberg View, admits “Maybe the biggest source of hope is how ‘Over-scheduled’ we were as children. Our parents were criticized for enrolling us in Little League, Ballet Class, and Science Camp all at once, but when you think about it we over-scheduled kids might be the uber project managers of the future.” LaMagna believes that being able to multitask is not a distraction but an upper hand in the future towards our career. From experience, as a child I as well was placed in Softball and Basketball at the same time. I feel it has made my life easier as a mother, because I can complete my daily chores while reading to my daughter as I am preparing dinner. If I was not over scheduled as a child, I would probably be bald from pulling all my hair out trying to keep up with my life.
In addition to completing multiple activities at once, Millennials have put forth their education because they understand the importance of today’s salary. LaMagna, comments “Remember not too long ago when we were clawing each other’s eyes out to get into college? Memories of that level of crazed intensity make me cringe (Let’s try to forget the day I cried over a bowl of tomato soup in the cafeteria about a bad quiz grade), but also suggest that as a generation we cannot be all that lazy.” In other words, LaMagna is describing the amount of pressure our generation is under to continue our education and how possibly one bad grade on a test could affect our chances to get into an outstanding college. Getting accepted into college is hard enough, but the stress of not getting into college is worse. Ultimately our generation either has to, obtain the highest level of education to keep up with the economy, or suffer the consequences of settling for minimum wage paying jobs. Unfortunately, as LaMagna puts it, “Being Lazy” is out of the question. For example, one of my good friends finished college but is having a difficult time finding work, so he is currently serving burgers and fries at Carl’s Jr. while he continues to look for employment.
As well as understanding that receiving a masters or bachelor degree will basically lead to a better future. Millennials also strive by putting all their focus to one main objective, which is to be the best. In LaMagna’s article, Alex Morse, a young 23-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts agrees, “Despite its sometimes bad rap, the Millennnial generation is ambitious.” Morse’s point is that although other generations think poorly of us, we are committed to achieve the impossible. Other generations like the Baby Boomers insist that we are lazy and narcissistic, but we have proven over and over that once we put our minds to something we make it our goal to accomplish it. For example, being a mom of two toddlers, working full time and being a full time student is hard, but I do it to better my future and make sure my two beautiful daughters have a better child hood then I did. I want my daughters to follow my example and thrive in anything they commit to. This is my personal goal for them, and being a Millennial myself, I will make sure this is achieved.
The Millennials are a generation that is deserving and commendable. We accomplish our goals and use the resources that were given to us. If we continue to climb up the success latter and show our hard work, we can change the views on how other generations see us. We need to come together as generations and make sure we teach the upcoming generations everything we have learned and ultimately continue to grow and push forward towards a better future.
