After TIME magazine slammed millennials (those born from early 80's to early 2000's) for being lazy and narcissistic, it seems like there's been lots of talk about millennials lately, both good and bad.
Everyone's a product of their environment. So when gen x'ers and baby boomers say that we millennials are lazy and narcissistic, they are ultimately saying that they raised us to be lazy and narcissistic. But, hold on, are we really lazy and narcissistic? If by lazy you mean we use technology to find all our information (we have the world at our fingertips, why wouldn't we use it?) or expecting a medal for something we received last place in (again: product of our environment; you guys are the ones who drilled into our brains that we should get rewarded for participation) and if by narcissistic you mean confident because we're fearless and creative and are not afraid to walk up to the CEO of our company and give them some advice.
Just remember, you baby boomers and gen x'ers were raised in a world where the economy was flourishing, the amount of hard work you put in was directly proportional to the amount of success you earned. It was a y=x world, bad luck only came from making bad decisions. It was pretty simple.
We are now part of a world where success only happens when the stars align; we have to not only be hard working (and even that sometimes isn't even a factor), but we have to be in the right place at the right time. Our world now lacks certainty and predictability. We don't know that the career path we chose will even yield us financial security. Yet, we see people like Honey BooBoo and the Jersey Shore cast make millions without having to put in any work to get them to where they are, they were just "found".
It seems that the baby boomers/gen x'ers think that the reason so many from our generation are jobless or in unfortunate financial situations are because they simply made bad decisions. It may be true for some people, but for most that's not the case. Millennials have just accepted the reality of the world we live in today. Now more than ever, successful millennials credit their success to luck or inheritances instead of actual hard work: http://millionairecorner.com/Content_Free/Young-Millionaires-Credit-Family-Connections.aspx.
So, basically, we get discouraged that we don't live in a y=x world. We were told by our parents for years that if we went to college, we would get good jobs, buy homes, live the good life. The reality is even if we do get good jobs, we are drowning in so much debt and usually the "good" job is having to settle for a salary that is beneath our expectation.
Call us whatever you want, but we're going to be taking over the world soon. We're the most innovative, diverse, educated, technology savvy, environmentally conscious, creative, fearless, (you get the picture) generation to grace this earth thus far. We aren't going to adapt to whatever job market is out there, we are going to make it adapt to us. It's not lazy, it's not narcissistic, it's just progressive.
