We Glorify Apathy And Laziness While We Blame Behavior On Gender Roles

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The millennial generation is lazy. Sorry if I’ve pissed you off, but the advent of Wikipedia, smart phones and Burger King delivered to your doorstep has made things really easy for us. What’s worse is that we’re really proud of being lazy. We write articles about the 10 laziest things that have ever been done.

I was recently on Pinterest browsing the humor section, because I’m a firm believer in sticking to your strengths, when I saw a pin that was both amusing and sad at the same time. It said: “Never before has a generation so diligently recorded themselves accomplishing so little.” Trust me, I get. I shamelessly take selfies and text my mom from the same house when I don’t feel like leaving the genuine comfort of Netflix and my couch. I don’t think the question is: “Are we affected by it?”, but rather: “How are we affected by it?” So we’ve glorified this attitude of laziness and apathy and we listen to Iggy tell us its okay to swing from chandeliers and not give a f—, but where has that brought us? Well, we don’t just do lazy things anymore, we think lazy thoughts.

Pretty much everyone has been told the same lie at one point in their life. If you work hard enough, you can do whatever you set your mind to. Well, I’ve been setting my mind on growing the perfect mustache for a decade and I still haven’t been able to produce anything noteworthy. Humor aside, which is not usually my practice, it’s become a cultural norm to blame certain behaviors or lack of certain skills on a person’s gender and frankly, that way of thinking is just straight up lazy.

A guy goes out, gets drunk, and sleeps with two girls in one night? Well, boys will be boys. Wait, what?? We’re seriously okay with that excuse? Last time I checked, stupid decisions are not limited to gender. (It is counterintuitive to suggest that while stupid decisions are not limited to gender, boys do seem to make a lot of them? So many. Too many to count. Like grains of sand on the beach.) Saying boys will be boys is like saying pants will be pants. Sure, pants will be pants, but there are still plenty of pants that are terrible and we shouldn’t be afraid to call them terrible. Yes, I’m talking about pleather pants.

A girl goes to throw a ball and totally misses the mark? Oh man, she throws like a girl. First of all, you should know that if you use that phrase in reference to anything I do and pair it with a smug look on your face, I already think you’re terrible at being a decent human being. Second of all, my inability to accurately throw a ball has nothing to do with my gender and everything to do with aim and spatial reasoning, or lack thereof in my case.

So can we really accomplish whatever we set our minds to? Excluding, of course, basic genetic impossibilities? I say yes. Do we have to live in fear of breaking norms and doing something that is typically considered manly or typically considered girly? Well, you can, but I refuse.

A lot of us have bought the lie that “Oh, you’re a girl, you can’t do that.” or “Oh, you’re a boy, you shouldn’t do that.”, but I say enough. If you are a boy who wants good looking feet and that means you go get a pedicure at your local nail salon, then so be it. Your girlfriend will probably thank you while the macho guy with the hobbit feet who made fun of you sits at home and wonders why he’s still single.

If you are a girl who legitimately enjoys watching football, then do it and do it well. Watch it every Sunday. Buy a t-shirt. Join a fantasy league. Actually watch the Super Bowl for more than “funny” commercials and half time boy band reunions. Let your NFL flag fly! And don’t you dare let anyone tell you that you’re just doing it for attention from boys. In my experience girls who try to give you crap about actually liking football vs. doing it for attention are usually just jealous because they don’t understand it at all.

At the end of the day, let’s just all agree to be authentic. It may sound cheesy, but have the courage to be you and allow others the same freedom. Don’t spend your life stressing about whether you’re “man enough” or stressing about the fact that someone told you that you “throw like a girl.” Life’s way too short to listen to the haters.