Natalie King
    Publisher

Something that I think is a huge threat to our generation is the sense of entitlement that so many millennials have inherited, or developed, in recent years. Our biggest threat, in turn, is ourselves.

Millennials today show entitlement through their lack of understanding of any opinion that differs from their own. Most people would say that today’s teens and twenties are the most open-minded group of millennials yet, but I disagree.

The generations before us that made real strides toward equality were open-minded; not our generation, which uses violence to protest and finds any reason to be offended. The previous generations fought against the close minded even with much higher stakes at hand than we have today. If you think about the fact that it was less than fifty years ago that our nation was still a place that lacked many basic equal rights, it can put things into perspective.

The difference between equal rights and equal opportunities is imperative to understand. To me, equal rights should be inherent. No one, regardless of race, gender, class, sexuality or religion, should have to fight for the right to vote, go to school, own land, get married, etc. But having equal opportunities, while I wish it was, is not an inherent right.

Every single person is born with a “set of cards” that helps and/or hurts them in terms of achieving things in life; as humans, we are not born entitled to anything, but we are born deserving equal rights.

This leads me to the fact that I believe millennials feel a sense of entitlement when it comes to things for which our parents and their parents had to fight. Yes, those changes were made in order to help future generations, but there are some things that are (unfortunately) still going to require hard work, and I feel many young people have lost the value of hard work altogether.

The evidence of the lack of value in hard work is easy to see in the fight to raise minimum wage. While this argument is between all Americans and not just millennials, I have seen a vast majority of millennials stand for raising minimum wage for selfish reasons. Sure, it is difficult to live off of minimum wage, but let us not forget that there is a reason it is called “minimum” wage; minimum wage for minimum skills.

If you want to earn more than minimum wage, you have to work for it, either through higher education or working up from an entry-level position.

This is where the difference between rights and opportunities comes in again; we all have the right to go to college, but maybe not the best opportunities. Not having equal opportunities is not something that we should settle for; we should work to make situations better for ourselves and the people around us.

Touching on the previous statement about being easily offended, I feel that millennials display a great sense of entitlement when it comes to their feelings. Millennials feel entitled to live in a world free of things that offend them or make them upset; they would never say this, but a lot of them act this way. If you do not agree with something someone else is doing, get over it and move on. The only time we should interfere with other people’s’ freedoms or opinions is if they are actually harming another group, which does happen.

Millennials use words like “ignorant” or “idiot” for anyone who dislikes their opinion. The mere sight of someone else’s religion or political stance should not offend you. Sometimes in life you have to put up with things you dislike, or even hate! You are not entitled to be happy all of the time.

Millennials are entitled to getting things right now. This, however, is not entirely our fault, as the technology surrounding us screams “instant”. Millennials inhabit a great sense of impatience when it comes to almost everything. When is the last time you grew vigorously impatient because your Netflix had to stop and load? Last night is likely a common answer.

So, what does this sense of entitlement mean for millennials? I believe the problem will continue to get worse, as our generation will teach the one coming up that they are also entitled to certain things and therefore do not need to work for them.

I think is narrows the career pool for many millennials as they won’t settle for entry-level pay or hours they do not want to work. It will also continue to drive political polarization and the number of people who are constantly offended will increase.

Essentially, by cookie-coating things that are hard to do or hear, we are only fueling the sense of entitlement and, thus, hurting ourselves and future generations.