Heated debates, lengthy conversations and a few far-fetched opinions about the past and future generations to come - ranging from the “Baby Boomers” to my generation, “The Millennials,” have been ongoing for quite some time now.
I didn’t realize how much of a love-hate relationship that my generation has with other people from different generations. Whenever older people speak of my generation, we are always associated with words such as “lazy,” “selfish,” “reckless,” or even “unappreciative.” In contrast, we are the generation who has “so much potential” to do whatever we put our minds to with the help of many technological advances.
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Noted by James O'Brien, "Millennials are demonstrating they're a new driving force," said John Swanciger, CEO of Manta. In the article, O'Brien goes on to talk about how millennials might be the most entrepreneurial generation ever and how they are rejecting traditional career paths and starting their own businesses, based on a recent survey from Manta.
To those who weren’t born in our generation, their perceptions can become biased due to the fact that we have opportunities beyond our own grasp and there are no limits to how far we can go. I’ve heard many Baby Boomers make claims that “kids these days don’t know what it takes to be a hard worker,” but I digress. We have to work 10 times as hard because there are, in fact, an endless amount of opportunities for entrepreneurship.
It is inevitable that we are more likely to face many more hardships such as student debt and finding a great job. Receiving a great education is quite pricey these days, and let’s be quite frank, the economy is definitely not where it once was. According to the U.S Student Loan Debt, it has increased by six percent since 2015 leaving the calculated estimated student debt around $38,000 for the graduates of 2016.
I never put much thought into this topic until a recent encounter I had in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago. I was walking around grabbing different household items for my apartment, and I decided to stop by the DVD bin to grab a few new pickups to add to my overflowing collection.
As I continued to search through the bin to find comedies and stage plays, I saw a middle-aged man with gray beard and bald head come to a halt with a smirk on his face. I looked up with a faint smile and continued to dig through the bin.
“So, you like DVDs?” he asked. “Yes, I do,” I replied. “I actually buy them all of the time,” I said before placing "Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married, Too" combo package into my basket. “Hmph. I didn’t know kids these days still watched those,” he said while walking off. I chuckled and continued to search for two more movies.
After I left Wal-Mart, the comment the man made earlier that day had finally resonated with me. I wasn’t sure of what claim he was trying to make. Was he referencing the fact that we “kids” only value watching shows on television, Netflix or Hulu? Or the fact that he was taken aback by someone my age actually taking the time to purchase a DVD? Don’t get me wrong, I am completely obsessed with binge watching "The Arrow" on Netflix and Hulu, but nothing is better than having a physical copy of every season at my own disposal.
I felt as if he already had this preconceived notion about my generation, but how can you generalize an entire generation? Because we take different routes and have a host of different outlets that enable us to engage in a different manner doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate other things from previous generations.
Were our generations that different that we, as millennials, can't appreciate items such as DVDs due to particular preferences or even inventions?
Beyond any doubt, technology has a hand in making the world run smooth and efficiently, but that doesn’t mean that we, millennials, no longer value a good ol’ fashioned DVD player and its small circular disks that harbors our favorite movies, shows, or stage-plays that we can’t get enough of.
Whether it is the "grind for what you want" attitude that shows we are born to create new opportunities and small businesses or the "we're too lazy because we have technology" mind frame that other generations think we tend to have all of the time, millennials are more than the stereotypical words that are attached before, or behind, our name.
