Give up your seat

I overheard a man on the bus talking about how disrespectful young people are these days, and how back in his day, the youth cared a lot more about the world and about the older generation. Personally, I felt a little offended, because I had jut given up my seat to an older woman. I didn't see where this anger was suddenly stemming from, but alas, he continued to say,  "kids from this generation are hopeless. They'll look you straight in the eye like they don't give a shit". I wanted to retaliate. I wanted to say to him, "That's not true. I give a lot of shits". But I didn't. I stood there and listened as he spoke ill of my generation and grouped us negatively as a whole.

Us, the Generation Y, the Millennials, the kids born from the 80's to Y2K, are known for a lot of things. We're known for being self-entitled, disrespectful, and narcissistic. We're stereotyped as lazy, coddled, and disengaged. We're generation "me".

Unfortunately, I have to agree with all of these things. As a whole, compared to the generations before us, we kind of suck. There is even scientific evidence to support how much we suck. But this isn't always the case! And it doesn't have to be like this. I think it's easy for society to focus on the negatives. To focus on that one time where a young man didn't give his seat to an elderly man on the bus. However, I prefer to think of the positives.

I have a friend who helped open a not-for-profit bistro café in downtown Hamilton called 541. Helping to run that café are over 70 volunteers, and 80% of those volunteers are under the age of 35. I don't know about you, but I'm going to go ahead and argue that we clearly do care, or at least some of us do. We care about the poor, the disenfranchised and the marginalized. We want to help, and we want to make a difference.

Because most of us played team sports as children, or were involved in play groups and social clubs, we're team oriented. We value teamwork and we look for reassurance and encouragement from other people. We want to build up one an other, we won't leave anyone behind, and we're committed to being inclusive. I've found this most recently in my college program. I expected the program to be very competitive, but I've been surprised by the complete opposite. We all work together on assignments, bounce ideas off one an other, study together, party together. We're a team, a family, and we sure as hell aren't going to leave one of our family members behind.

Thanks to our parents, we were pampered and primped. Our parents didn't want to make the same mistakes that their parents did. Therefore, we were coddled, and damn, did we enjoy it! This might seem like a negative quality to you, but I see a silver lining here. Thanks to our parents attentive nurturing, we're confident, ambitious, and we strive to achieve. We have high expectations of our employers, our professors, and essentially anyone who interacts with us. We aren't afraid to challenge them, and to make them strive to be better. We want meaningful work, and that's what we will get.

When I overheard the man complaining about my generation on the bus, I wish I had spoken up. I wish I had started a healthy debate and argued to all of our positives. Maybe I could have provided some insight, or maybe I would have looked disrespectful for challenging him. Either way, we are who we are, and we aren't all bad.

I encourage you all to go out and prove the other generations wrong about us. Go volunteer, get politically involved, and please, give up your seat to the older people on the bus.