[osd_social_media_sharing]<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost as if baby boomers find joy and an odd sense of satisfaction in telling millennials how \u201ceasy\u201d we have it.<\/strong> They wag their finger and whine \u201cback in my day, I had to walk 9 miles to the nearest soiree and I had to be back home by 8:00 on the dot!\u201d Alright. Good for you gramps. Time are a\u2019 changin. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not trying to say our parents and grandparents don\u2019t have a right to grouse about their lives when they were our age. In fact, I agree with them on <\/span>some<\/span><\/i> things. Let\u2019s be realistic here. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There are two sides to the most common arguments about the millennials vs \u201coldies\u201d debate:<\/span><\/p>\n First of all: Sorry you didn\u2019t have cell phones to Snapchat you pals with or computers to watch endless amounts of funny cat videos on. Doesn\u2019t the lack of technology make life a whole lot simpler though? Hear me out. <\/span><\/p>\n We are so consumed by our Apple products nowadays. It\u2019s as if we\u2019re going through a new plague; a technology-obsessed epidemic that makes us zombie-like and grouchy if the wifi isn\u2019t connecting. One can argue that the lack of these media infused chains was beneficial to our elders\u2019 health and self-esteem. Yeah, self-esteem. I don\u2019t know about you, but I feel pretty crappy when my hotline isn\u2019t blinging or my friends snapchat me pictures of themselves doing lavish things without me. I don\u2019t want to be THAT person that complains about social media while actively on social media, but you can\u2019t deny the harmful effects it has on us. I might go to Twitter for funny dog memes and scroll through USA Today\u2019s mobile site to fact check what politicians are saying but I also go for my daily dose of \u201cwow, my life sucks compared to theirs\u201d. The \u201csocial\u201d part of social media is awfully bittersweet. Not touching my phone for longer than an hour seems almost impossible but, hey, maybe no social media was actually pretty liberating.<\/span><\/p>\n But, with that being said, I understand that the<\/span> lack <\/span><\/i>of technology was sort of a bummer. Well, the lack of convenience provided by technology was a bummer. I cannot even begin the tell you how many time the maps on my smartphone has saved me from being stranded in a sketchy area of New Jersey at 2:00am (don\u2019t ask me what I do in my spare time…you don\u2019t know my life). Also, having a handy dandy calculator at my disposal whenever I want is pretty cool. Oh! And Google? Thank you for finding answers to all my weird questions (once again, you don\u2019t know my life). Knowing our elders had to actually look something up in an encyclopedia is kinda mentally draining to me. Life without Netflix is a life I simply do not want to live. How else would I binge watch Orange is the New Black and House of Cards?!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We know this struggle all too well. If we don\u2019t get good grades in high school, we won\u2019t get into college and if we don\u2019t get into college, we won\u2019t get a job and if we don\u2019t get a job we\u2019ll end up like crazy Bill who always hangs out at the street corner with his fat cat and is convinced he\u2019s Alexander Hamilton. \u201cDon\u2019t end up like Bill. Go to college. Get a job.\u201d It\u2019s a lot of pressure on us, okay? Not all of our parents, and even fewer of our grandparents, went to college. But hey, they have jobs right? You have a roof over your head right? Some can say that they\u2019re lucky that they didn\u2019t have to spend a fortune on grad school to get a master\u2019s degree to get a stable job. Standards and expectations are high nowadays. There was once a time that a GED was all you needed to get a \u201cgood\u201d job. Now, you\u2019d be lucky to get a job that pays minimum wage with that. College is not for everyone. I wish jobs took that into consideration when they tell the hard working, passionate kid he can\u2019t be hired because he didn\u2019t go to Yale. <\/span><\/p>\n On the flip side, we are lucky as heck to be in college. Sure, the all-nighters suck and the monotone professors are a bore but college is much more than a prereq to a career; college is a community. We should be considered lucky that our parents recognize how crucial college is and encourage us to attend. We are bombarded with resources and valuable opportunities at college. Take advantage of libraries, kids. They hold the answers to everything. <\/span><\/p>\n Again, college isn\u2019t for everyone. Also, not all parents are as willing to help their kids go. That\u2019s okay. That isn\u2019t shameful. If you WANT to go to college and have the MEANS to go to college, do it. Do what is best for you. If you are lucky enough to attend, count your blessings.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s common for my peers to talk about how much pressure they face nowadays; they struggle with balancing a social life with employment and internships and beauty standards. It feels like we\u2019re constantly being invalidated and expected to act a certain way. Keep up with trends! Don\u2019t be weird! Make sure you know what you want to do with your life by 18 years old or you\u2019ll be a failure! It\u2019s almost as if we\u2019re thrown into adulthood, but then scolded if we try to take too much responsibility. When I try to explain to parents where my stress is coming from, they simply don\u2019t get it. They don\u2019t understand why I feel so passionately about things and why the pressure to be perfect is so evident. Didn\u2019t they too feel like failures when they couldn\u2019t get the internship that would look amazing on their resumes? Oh wait. Probably not. They also probably didn\u2019t experience the same pressure to like the \u201cright\u201d type of movies or music or celebrities. On top of that, almost everything we say is dissected and misconstrued these days. It\u2019s like we\u2019re walking on eggshells. <\/span><\/p>\n But I think it\u2019s important to note how much more accepting we are of people\u2019s differences. Sure, that might sound contradicting but I mean this on a racial and gender scale. Women are being empowered in ways that would\u2019ve been frowned upon 20 years ago. Slowly but surely, people of color are being more appropriately represented in film and television. We have a long way to go but we shouldn\u2019t ignore the milestones we\u2019ve reached. Full equality doesn\u2019t seem that far away anymore. We have a black president. Viola Davis made history when she became the first black woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series. Marriage equality is now a reality in all 50 states. What makes us different is alienating us a lot less now and being celebrated a lot more. Millennials are fighting WITH each other rather than AGAINST each other. <\/span><\/p>\n When you take everything I just said into consideration, it\u2019s kind of hard to say who has it \u201ceasier\u201d. As Kanye West once tweeted, \u201c<\/span>No matter what level you’re at in life there is still a struggle<\/i><\/b>\u201d. We millennials have so much to appreciate in the world today, but older generations need to recognize how hard we work to build a brighter future for generations to come. Call us materialistic, call us spoiled. But one thing is for sure: we are revolutionary.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [osd_social_media_sharing] It\u2019s almost as if baby boomers find joy and an odd sense of satisfaction in telling millennials how \u201ceasy\u201d we have it. They wag their finger and whine \u201cback in my day, I had to walk 9 miles to the nearest soiree and I had to be back home by 8:00 on the dot!\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg",830,553,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1-216x144.jpg",216,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg",830,553,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg",830,553,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg",830,553,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg",830,553,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Diane Cardoso","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/diane-cardoso\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"[osd_social_media_sharing] It\u2019s almost as if baby boomers find joy and an odd sense of satisfaction in telling millennials how \u201ceasy\u201d we have it. They wag their finger and whine \u201cback in my day, I had to walk 9 miles to the nearest soiree and I had to be back home by 8:00 on the dot!\u201d…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Homepage-Content-Tile-3-Info-on-the-Generations1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Technology<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Education + Job Searching<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Society<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n