I’m a millennial. More or less, I’m proud of it. We millennials are stuck in the middle. We grew up for some of our lives without technology. We still remember dial-up internet, but now can’t survive (exaggeration) without WiFi. We know what it was like to have to go door to door asking if our friends could play, and what it was like to go places and do things without our phones attached to our hands.

Of course, older people hate us “damn millennials.” I think my favorite argument is that we were babied as kids and everyone got a participation trophy so we all think we’re special. But who gave us these participation trophies? Older generations.

We never asked for participation trophies. We never asked to have to be competitive in everything we do. One of my professors said he couldn’t believe how competitive our generation is. He said we have to make everything a competition, and his generation was nothing like that.

Isn’t it true though? Everyone wants to be the best and win everything. For what? What are we trying to prove?

My generation knows what it’s like to lose and then try harder in order to win. Regardless or not we received participation trophies as children, we’re still learning how to succeed. I know people who got participation trophies were annoyed that they got something that meant absolutely nothing, because, let's face it, they meant nothing. Kids are smarter than you think they are. We knew they meant nothing. Sometimes it's nice to get something to prove our hard work paid off, but sometimes participation trophies were also a slap in the face for not winning.

Yes, sometimes it was nice to know that our contribution meant something, but at the same time, we realized we didn’t win anything. Participation trophies didn’t ruin us for life. I’m sure we’d all pretty much be the same without them, but thanks for trying to make them into something they’re not.

If anyone is to blame for participation trophies, it’s the older generations who made them and gave them to us. We don’t want your participation trophies. You can have them back.