Open Letter from a Millennial: Quit Telling Us We’re Not Special

Even the things we do for fun – playing sports, joining a band, riding a horse, writing a story – you have made into a competition. You’ve taken our creativity and told us that it matters not because it fulfills us, but because we can sell it to a college and reap the returns on our “investment” decades from now. Every little thing we do must be harnessed for profit. And you wonder why we seem to have no spontaneity left.

You have done our work for us, then called us lazy.

You have threatened our teachers, then told us “just an A” isn’t good enough.

You have gotten our jobs for us, and called us underachievers.

You have recorded everything we do, like researchers breeding a better mouse.

You have made us trophy-seekers, then mocked us for our walls of worthless awards.

You have pitted us against each other in a fight for success, which has become survival.

You have given us a world in which even our college degrees are meaningless because there are just too many of us.

You have made us depend on you. When we followed your instructions – went to the best schools, got the best grades, took the most internships and did the most independent study projects, met the right people and got into the right grad schools and chosen the right majors – we’ve ended up stuck in your basement because nobody in your generation is willing to pay us a living wage.

Then you called us the “boomerang” generation that refuses to grow up. When did we have the chance?

via Open Letter from a Millennial: Quit Telling Us We’re Not Special « The Phoenix and Olive Branch.