The Millennial Manifesto

The Millennials attract a variety of attention. Some people claim we have lofty, unrealistic expectations and entitlement issues, which is responsible for the deplorable Occupy Wall Street Movement. We’re called lazy and unpredictable. I’m told we want the world but aren’t unwilling to work for it, but I couldn’t comment on that because I’m too busy complaining. </sarcasm>

Conversely, we are responsible for starting things like Facebook. Generation Y has played crucial roles in recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and as mentioned before, youth movements in Europe and Occupy Wall Street. (Though I do not agree with all their wide range of thoughts, there are those charismatic members who are spot on in their assessment of our country.) Aside from being called Generation Y or Millennials, we’re also called the First Globals. We are generally more accepting of diversity than previous generations and as a result we feel that we have a greater social responsibility.

So why the disparities in opinion? We do things differently. We’re quick to adapt and very flexible which can be perceived as uncaring and lackadaisical. We’re called the Peter Pan generation. Most of us have some sort of higher education but many of us cannot land stable employment that alone can support us. This isn’t out of laziness, actually we’re probably one of the hardest working groups out there. Through places like TaskRabbit and Craigslist, we’re more willing to take on supplemental sources of income to do jobs that others don’t want to do.

There are many critics of the Millennials: Ruben Navarrette, Jr. (He claims that we are too arrogant to take jobs in fields like farming, despite statistics showing a greater interest from young people in farming compared to preceding generation.), Paul Carr (He argues that we are a willfully ignorant bunch that just wants self-celebration.), even comedian Adam Carolla (He relabeled us “the ass-douches”). Am I arguing that they are completely incorrect? Everything has its exceptions from the norm, but what I mean to say is that their complaints are true for some but far from being true for most. This notion that the young are just a bunch of lazy freeloaders has been going on for centuries, I mean, just read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

The world has fallen apart around us, not just for Generation Y, and it is our generation that wants to fix it instead of just putting it back together. That doesn’t sound lazy at all, and if that’s unrealistic, we apologize for trying to give future generations something worthy of being inherited.

Globalization continues to happen at an incredible place. The world continues to shrink as we refuse to slow our consumption of resources. A good proportion of us have traveled internationally, a larger portion likely knows people who live somewhere else. We are constantly inundated with information about poverty and hunger. We understand the importance of creating a sustainable future, one where only a small portion of the population doesn’t have access to food, clean water and education. Our sense of social responsibility often seems unparalleled. It’s what’s allowed companies like Tom’s shoes to succeed.

We’re fighting to change this even though many of us are un- or under employed. So, the economy is still sluggish and our degrees in international relations or art history haven’t panned out for us. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t taken those jobs as many think; I’m on my sixth job right now, two paid and one unpaid ones last year. I just finished my third retail tour and many others are doing that or working in coffee shops, restaurants, whatever. Despite the lack of high-paying jobs we hoped college would have afforded us, we’re still content to do work our parents and university teachers told us we we’re better than. And we’ll do the best damn job we can do to ensure your coffee isn’t burnt and be the best unpaid intern you’ve ever had. But we’re also a generation raised to always question, so even with our parent’s belief we could all one day be President, we always knew they were feeding us lines. Seriously, we deal with ennui on a daily basis, we’ve had time to come to terms with this.

Our problem isn’t with our exceedingly high expectations. Why should we settle when society and government have always done this instead of fighting for something better? Look at where it’s gotten us. The world isn’t as terrible as I may portray it here, it just has always had the potential to be better and we don’t understand why people haven’t been working harder to make it that way.

We are more willing to co-exist with others and help them out. It may be that unlike other generations, we were fortunate enough to grow up without segregation or a lack of women’s suffrage. I don’t mean these issues have been completely eradicated, but it is far different for us now than other twentieth-century generations. And hopefully it will be even better for subsequent ones as the gay rights movement continues to (perhaps too slowly) succeed. As a whole, we truly do push for the betterment of the lives of others, even if it would do nothing to help us.

Through our firm grasp on ever-evolving technology, we’re able to create and sustain social networks that span the planet. We work together for things that are larger than our own personal gain because we believe we owe it to the future. We just want to make it a better place because what is happening now is not working.

It doesn’t really matter to us what may be said about the millennials. We’re too busy trying to get things done to let it bother us. Everybody else can work with us to make the world a better place, or you can join the bunch of gripers, who we’ll still help because its our social responsibility. And that’s why we’re different.