Stop Calling Millennials Lazy Because We’re ALWAYS Busy
By Matt Teaford
We’ve all heard it time and time again. People from other generations like to make a mocking of millennials, usually paired with a nice adjective like “cry babies.”
Quite frankly, I’ve never had much of an interest in trophies at all — especially ones for “participation.” Just in case anyone out there is keeping tabs: Most trophies just sit in the corner of your room, collecting dust, until they finally lose all sense of relevance and you shove them in a box at some point down the line.
No one’s going to remember how you finished in your 3rd grade pee-wee baseball league, but they will remember your work ethic.
I received a number of participation trophies growing up. I also won a couple of times, but it really never held much value. While competition can be great in certain settings, I’ve found that it’s the effort of mutual assistance and working together with others that’s the true reward.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think if we had more people in the workplace, politics, and just about everywhere else that cared more for working together to achieve greater results, we’d all be a lot happier.
The majority of my nascent political campaign’s team are millennials, but we’re not lazy. We’re ambitious, keen, and not afraid to roll up our sleeves to get work done.
I’ve seen this among so many others from our generation as well. We designed our own website, took our own pictures, and created our own graphic design. All of us have different concentrations and backgrounds that aren’t related to the things we’ve done, but we learn. We adapt.
You see, the thing about millennials isn’t that we’re quick to give up. It’s not that we’re lazy, either. It’s that we’re able to be resourceful with what we have.
Despite inheriting a student debt burden greater than past generations can surmise, instead of whining, we keep picking up new skills. We keep learning and striving to do better than what we’ve been handed, and we will achieve.
Don’t sleep on us, folks. We’re only just getting started.