Shattered-Reflections: Need to just get it off my chest.
Rant:
Okay, need to vent. Here’s the thing. I’m really sick of the whole “entitlement generation” argument starting to rear its head when it comes to the talk about Student Loans. Look. I was told to make a good living you had to earn it. Yes earn it. My mom taught me work ethic like no other and it was reinforced by the school district and yes I was born in 1992: generation “Me” generation “Gimme” the “Entitlement Generation”. Now here’s the issue. The way I was told over and over again to “earn” my living wages was through getting an education. If you drop out of high school you were a lazy-no-good-bum, if you didn’t goto college you were a lazy-no-good-bum (all the more so if you were black and just lived off the government for the rest of your days), and now I’m doing those things and I’m ready to work even harder so I can make a living you know, with a job and all of a sudden there aren’t enough to go around. SO what do I do? Give up? No that would be a lazy thing to do. I continue looking for one. But what does one do until you score one? Well obviously I’m too lazy of a good-for-nothing entitled brat to be homeless like a good girl (because you know apartment owners are soooo willingly to rent to a person with no job). Instead I live with my parent who OBVISOUSLY coddles me and buys me everything I want. It’s not like I don’t go out and buy the NEWEST BEST MOST EXPENSIVE ITEMS THROUGH MY MOM RIGHT? OR maybe Not? No. I work-out so I can still fit the clothes I wore in middle school because I KNOW I won’t be getting anymore until I have the money to buy them. I PAID for my phone through money left over from a full-ride scholarship I worked my ass off in school to be a candidate to receive. I went without and go without. I apply for, look for, and pray for a job every-day. Sure I get help, I hate to take it but I do. I’m given hand-me-downs. We all need them from time to time. You’d be lying if you never said you needed help, but I never take advantage of them. It’s humiliating to have to depend on them. Why? Because I’m already labeled as “wanting everything handed to me.” So the last thing I want: is anything handed to me. That’s not what I expect from the world and that’s not why I work so hard. If I did I would’ve taken an easy way out a long time ago. That being said:
I am very grateful for what I have already.
I am.
But. It isn’t entitlement to realize that something isn’t right.
It isn’t entitlement to realize that it shouldn’t be like this.
Not that to say that we shouldn’t struggle, because we all have to grow from struggle, but the nation’s part-time jobs at fast-food chains shouldn’t be so flooded with people well over the age of 30 and 40 years old that young adults and teens like myself are fighting with them for jobs there. It isn’t entitlement to realize that as a nation we should be able to do better than this. We have the capabilities to do better and we should be working, yes working toward something better. Isn’t that what people complain about?? This generation doesn’t work for better, and that it’s full of sheeple that are pacified by the media, given their rations and are okay working slave labor jobs just to get by as long as they can watch tv? Aren’t we supposed to be rallied up against the hydras that want to eat the middle class alive?
I know the Occupy Wallstreet thing has it’s controversy and what not. Showcasing some young people at their worst & most stupid. I’m aware. But I feel like the fact the “entitlement generation” could protest on a fairly large scale says at least we’re able to get off our asses and protest when we think something is wrong. That shows initiative. Not much, but something. You shouldn’t be so discouraged with us that you can’t see that. Anyone who protested because they felt that normal people should earn as much as bankers and successful businessmen because: equality, yeah –is pretty messed up. But ones who protested because they felt like somehow there are corporate people high up who are screwing the nation big time- their hearts were in the right place. Because the nation is being screwed in more ways than one by many people. I don’t have to spell that out.
And the last thing anyone should do when the nation is being screwed is divide it anymore than it already is. We’re already divided by so much we’re gonna divide ourselves along generational lines now? (Not like we haven’t been before, but still!)
Attitudes carried by the people that dismiss me because of my age and generation, are the ones that rally against the cause of their troubles, and then go: well I suffer(ed) and so you should too because: I wasn’t treated fairly, I suffered so all you guys should go through the same thing. *Bull-Shit.* You have a responsibility to work for the next generation so that there is less suffering, less injustice, lessened troubles.
Not to say there is nothing to be learned by struggling because there are important lessons that are!
But the people who came before you worked so that you’d have a better life! Why would you scorn that? By refusing to acknowledge that we should be working together to lessen the hardships of the upcoming generation you unravel things further!
And if you feel like the “entitlement generation” is so fucked then what are you doing about it? You’d better be doing something to help “fix” us. You’d better be somewhere in the system somewhere. That’s what we’re told. We’re “entitled” because we WANT things and won’t DO anything about it. Well you get off your lazy ass and DO. Don’t take the ‘I’ve already served, I already did my part for years’ route if you’re screaming about how the nation is doomed because my generation and the next is taking over for you soon. I’m doing what I can with the knowledge that as a nation everyone is “entitled” to the things it can READILY provide. It can provide: food, water, shelter, clothing, and education. It doesn’t because of debt we shouldn’t have, misuse of money, other issues that I’m not even informed enough to speak on. But we’re aware that it can do these things. We’re in the age of information overload! We hear statistics of some sort every-day and have access to more information than before. Maybe not enough to know EVERYTHING but enough to realize we should be able to provide necessary accommodations for people to live.
So when you talk about the Student Loan Bubble popping because our generation is soooo irresponsibly going to schools we can’t afford, trying to get a job, and struggling to pay back our educational fees, about how we “knew” what we were getting into and how “horrible it is that we’re the adults of the future”, think first about how we’re labeled: Lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we don’t go to school, Lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we protest against we feel is wrong during something like the Occupy movement, Lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we do go to school but graduate with tons of debt. We’re labeled lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we stay with our parents, but lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we live off government assistance instead! We’re lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we can’t find a job, and lazy, entitled, and irresponsible if we speak up about it! But all you’ll do is sit back and watch and take care of yourself and family because that’s the only responsibility you see is to yourself!
There are entitled attitudes in my generation. I witness them all the time too, but don’t generalize the whole struggling “entitlement generation” as a bunch of “gimme” kids because your nephew or that kid down the street doesn’t work for shit or something. Please. Don’t undermine the struggle. If there’s anything I haven’t EARNED and been ENTITLED to is that label!
Just because you don’t see the fruits of someone else’s labor doesn’t mean there’s an absence of labor to be found.
A woman in my life is always judging me and criticizing me for being unemployed for the summer, but she herself has no job, and is living in a house she basically “took” from her grandparent. She has delivered no payments out of any money of her own, on that house it was paid for on the back of her grandmother. It was my great-grandmother’s and HER father’s home: whom she has all but driven away so she can keep it for herself. The woman’s son lives off her (somehow?!) and she has given him her car so she has none of her own. But I’m going to school and doing very well there & come home from summer and the minute I don’t have a summer job I need to stop depending on my parent, I need to get a job, I need to get out of bed and work. SHE had no IDEA the amount of energy I put into finding employment and maintaining my gpa overall in school. JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T SEE A SHINY RED APPLE OF A JOB APPEARING OUT OF NOWHERE DOESN’T MEAN IM NOT LOOKING FOR ONE!
Rant Over.
