By MATT THIBAULT
STAFF WRITER
It’s a popular opinion that our generation is the “entitled generation.” People think that we’re soft, that we think we deserve everything, and that we cater too much to social media and technology. I’m here to tell you that simply isn’t true.
I see pieces all over the place. They say that we’ve been coddled, that we’ve been brought up soft, that we’ve been raised on awards for participation, all around effort. They think that because of this, we’re not prepared for the real world. I’ve seen posts about how people are solely focused on image, how we care about what others think about us, and how we prioritize likes and opinions over concrete and intrinsic beliefs and motivations. I’m here to tell the people who think that we’re soft, that we care too much about opinions, that we’re connected to our technology at the limbs, wiring running figuratively into our brains, that they need to listen. We are not what you think we are.
I will concede a point. There are definitely outliers amongst this generation, people who do fit the stereotype, and that they can’t be used as representatives of the whole. The majority of us see ourselves as hard workers, people who strive to do well for ourselves in a relatively struggling economy that we were left to salvage.
We believe that we have to work for what we want. To the people of St. Lawrence, you already understand this. To get here, we had to work like hell in high school, work hard in the classroom, and put all of our efforts into maintaining a college education. To say that we expect to have everything handed to us is absolutely wrong. We don’t expect everything to be handed to us. Hell, we worked to get here.
As for technology, that’s more of a perspective issue. Technology is a wondrous thing; we all hold in our possession devices that can answer virtually any question that we have. These devices can connect us with friends from across the hall, or across the world. I don’t think that it’s all about likes and shares and retweets and favorites. Nor is it about social status, about whether we want to impress people. It’s about expression. It’s about letting the world know who we are.
If you read this, and you disagree, then that’s fine by me. We’re all entitled (there’s that word again) to our own opinions. I can respect what you believe. I just hope that if you took the time to read this, my words resonated with you. We aren’t assholes. We’re people with access to technologies and ideas that generations before us weren’t able to see. We work hard, and we go for what we want, instead of wanting it to be handed over. We aren’t entitled, and we’re proud of it.