"Millennials are lazy" and other clickbait

It's no secret that virtually every publication or person will have some sort of commentary about the millennial generation. Lately, however, I've been noticing posts that are very anti-millennial-in-the-work-place.


I will prefaces this by saying that I am 22 years old, I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, specialized in creative writing, with a minor in Spanish language and literature. I'm what some people may call "useless," in the job market.


But guess what? I have a job.


So let's set some things straight about the millennial generation.




1. What a useless degree you have there
Believe it or not, there's more to life than bankers, lawyers, engineers, and doctors. You need people like me, people with a liberal arts education, to keep the world spinning. Teachers, are the obvious choice. But what about advertising companies, speech writers, journalists, translators. You name it. English degrees can get people into med school or law school, because a liberal arts education teaches you how to problem solve and view multiple perspective, all while thinking critically.


And even if you don't end up in one of those positions, the world would be a dull, uninteresting place without creative minds adding to it. Think about the creativity behind Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment, or the creative talent behind some of the things people most know and recognize. Read: logos, slogans, the songs that the radio likes to play five times every hour to get stuck in your head.


2. You're lazy. Get a job. 
Do you know how difficult it is to get a job? A job that doesn't tear you down, doesn't wear you down, and allows you to pay for your student loans? Let me explain to you a thing. In America you need to go to college. Whereas it used to be optional, and CEOs from 1981 didn't need a college degree as long as they went to work every day, that's no longer the case. Nowadays you pretty much need a college education to get a job at McDonald's.


Think about why elementary and high schools are defunding liberal arts programs and focusing on the scary thing known as the "common core." Students have to be prepared to know how to read, write, and do maths or sciences. We're priming our students to be test-savvy, for a career in the medical, mechanical, or scientific fields. So that means more schooling.


But you can't go to community college, because that "doesn't look as good on a résumé as a full university does."


So you end up taking out loans and leaving school four years later with 50 thousand dollars in debt. But you were taking too many classes, so you could only work part time at Subway to pay your bills. Now you have to find a job.


And that question that every job application asks? "How much experience do you have?"


The phrase on every job listing ever? "Looking for 2-3 years experience," "Must have experience in x industry."


How am I supposed to get a job if I need experience? How am I supposed to get experience if I can't get a job?


It's a catch 22, and you only have 6 months to figure out a way to start paying back your student loans, so why not move back in with your parents? While you pay 2/3 of your pay check to the federal government for your loans (which barely covers the interest accrued), and the rest of it you spend on food or rent or bills?

3. You demand too much money
Woah.

Here's the thing. It's 2016. It isn't 1980 anymore.

In 1980 the average house cost 68 thousand dollars. Now? We're talking 346 thousand dollars. The average salary then? 12 grand.

Things are not the same anymore. The cost of living has skyrocketed, no thanks to the same generation that keeps complaining that Millennials are lazy and want too much money.

You used to be able to get away with making less than 12 grand a year.  Now? You do that and you'd below the poverty threshold.

12 grand is in-state tuition for one semester at college, a college you're expected to attend. So when you exit more than 50k in the hole, and you only make $9.50 an hour, and you work over 40 hours a week, how is 16k enough to cover your living expenses and all of the debt you were ultimately forced to attain, so you could find a decent job?



So get off your high horse. Times have changed. So have expectations. People expect a decent, living wage. People are trying to find jobs that will fit their needs. We don't all lie around in bed all day watching rap music videos and sending sex messages to a million people.

We're people. And we're some of the most politically active, technologically savvy, creative minds out there. We will do amazing things, and that doesn't include tanking the economy and blowing up the housing market or destroying the environment, because some people have already done that.

And one day we will be taking care of you.

Or not. Maybe we will be too lazy to do so.

Sing our love for alma mater

Today I've been cleaning up and rearranging and trying to put my life back together again after moving out of East Lansing. And I found my acceptance letter. When I got it, I didn't know that I was about to embark on the four most exciting (and confusing) years of my life so far.

In 2010, when I seriously started considering college, I swore up and down I was going to go to Penn State. And my father and I drove there, and we visited, and we got lost on campus, and I fell in love. But no one in my family fell in love with the out of state tuition that was double and then some what I would be paying if I were to stay a little closer to home.

So I was angry and annoyed, because there went my dream school. The dream school that I never even ended up applying to in the end.

My parents and I toured Grand Valley, and I swore I was going to go there. Why? Because I wasn't going to be one of those kids that either went to UMich or MSU. And let me tell you a little something about GVSU: I fucking hated it. 

I hated the weird modern-ish atmosphere. I hated the buildings. I hated how small it was. I hated the people giving us the tour. I hated the tour. (Sorry, GVSU friends.) I was still so in love with PSU. But I was going to tough it out. I was going to go to a school that I hated, just for the sake of not going to Michigan or Michigan State.

Until my parents literally dragged me to MSU. We got lost. We fell in love. 

Michigan State was the only school I applied to. Michigan State was the only school I got into. Michigan State was the only school I was going to attend.

Freshman year I stayed on campus with some fucking weird suite mates. I became a ballroom dancer. I fell hard for a guy that I don't even speak to anymore. I drank tequila for the first time. I no longer drink tequila. I traveled. I made friends. I came out of the shell I had built myself into in high school. 

Sophomore year I moved off campus. I got a job. I danced for half a year and then I stopped. I saw a therapist. My parents got divorced. I photographed hockey for the first time. I kissed the first boy I would ever kiss. His name was Scotty, and I was singing "Scotty Doesn't Know" and picturing Matt Damon the whole time. I fell for a different boy.

Junior year I stayed off campus in the same apartment. I continued working at the newspaper. A lot. Like 7 days a week. I really didn't have much of a life junior year, but that was okay. I loved the people I worked with. I enjoyed myself.  I covered football and an entire hockey season and baseball and I traveled. I covered a B1G tournament. I worked at the Joe Louis.

Senior year. My last year. I found the relationships I wanted to keep and the relationships I didn't want to keep. I switched jobs and learned editorial design. I met new people. I covered hockey again, for a reprise tour of Munn and a last hurrah at The Joe. I fell for another boy that I almost didn't want to be with. He inspired my thesis. I wrote a senior thesis that I liked (!!!). I read it in front of people. I turned 21. I fucking GRADUATED. In four years!

tl;dr? 

I didn't have a traditional MSU experience. I didn't have a traditional college experience. I'm so far in debt I'm swimming.

BUT. I met the best people and made the best memories. People I want to be with and talk to for the rest of my life. I had a job for three years that allowed me to do so much in so little time.  Everything was so new and exciting, everyone was so different. I've done so much in so little time and been with so many amazing people. And I don't know how to properly express it.

So here's to all the people that made Michigan State University the best fucking university in the United States. Even the UMich kids that lost football games for us. And threw dildos at Sparty (really guys?) Everyone made every minute, every melt down, every tear, every all nighter worth it. So. #GoGreen #GoWhite 

And still. The best part? I managed to avoid stepping foot in Rick's for all four years.

Okay, good, great? Better.

It was recently brought to my attention that I use the word "okay" too often. Apparently I rarely use "good" or "great" or any combination of adjectives to describe either a feeling or a situation or what have you. I won't deny that accusation.

"Okay" was always the word that was the most fitting.

Things haven't really been "good" or "great" for a long while. My first year of college was pretty rough emotionally, and then my parents got divorced out of the gate for my sophomore year. It was then that I decided to subject myself to the terror of The State News. It was good for me, because I was unable to really stop and think about what my life was really like. I didn't have time to dwell.

That summer, and the year following, things slowed down pretty considerably. But it was still okay. I was okay. I had survived. I was older and supposedly wiser, but I didn't feel any better than "just okay."

Okay is acceptance, only satisfactory, not exceptional. Okay is approval. Okay doesn't necessarily mean change or anything great. It isn't an optimistic word, but for those of you that know me, I'm not necessarily an optimistic person. I take things as they are.

I saw a therapist as a junior. We talked once a week, and then once every other week. We talked about balancing my life, and letting go, and moving on. Every time we met he would ask me "How are you feeling today?"

My answer was typically 'okay.' Whether it's because my appointments were at 9 in the morning or because I truly was only accepting my life as it was, I couldn't say. But that was okay (see what I did there?).

I stopped going to a therapist for a while, and then the panic attacks started again senior year. I couldn't breathe. I thought I had pneumonia. I thought I was having a heart attack at 20. It lasted well over an hour.

Now, I'm no stranger to panic attacks. The sudden onset of "hey, ass hole, you're going to die" has been something I've been dealing with since high school. Just like a lot of other people.

After therapy, there were several months in between them. Senior year, they were happening every other day. I went back to group. I was on several different antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills. The first set made me worse. The second set made me feel a little better.

I've been on pills for, come August, almost a year. I'm not a person that's fond of being on medication for a long time, which is why I put it off for so long.

And it's also why, as of today, I'm no longer on medication.

School is over, I'm no longer working for a newspaper, I've let go of people that were causing me more damage than good, and I've accepted a lot of things in my life that I was previously unable to accept.

I've move past just mild acceptance of my current life. I'm looking to move forward.

I'm doing better.

I feel great.

For the "I'm not good enoughs"

If only I could stop measuring my worth

in the teaspoons of your approval.

In light of the recent Dove campaigns, and a bunch of conversations I've been having, and sort of the way I've been feeling lately, I wanted to talk about the ever-loathed subject of body image.

What? The skinny white girl that hasn't changed her hair length since she was born, supposedly doesn't care about what she wears, and only shaves when she absolutely has to? That's me, but that's me on the exterior.

On the exterior I'm always telling people how beautiful they look, how strong they are, how nothing is stopping them, that they're powerful individuals.

On the inside, I'm always telling myself that I'm average-looking at best, on my worst days I'm bordering on extremely unattractive. I'm telling myself that I'm weak, that I can only control myself with medication and alcohol. I'm telling myself that everything I do sucks, that I'm a "good-for-nothing."

I hate my body.

I hate my skin complexion and how I seem to always have acne on my face, and I hate the way my hair grows, and I hate the hair that covers my body and the way my legs move when I run, and I hate that I'm not actually in-shape enough to go running, and I hate the size of my boobs and the size of my feet and the scars on my knees.

There's just so much hatred.

Maybe society is constantly telling me I'm "not pretty enough" or "not good enough." 

But I'm also telling myself that.

A couple weeks ago I was involved on a conversation about "hot girls." The hot girls with big breasts and long blond hair. And I found myself thinking "Wow, I'm not good enough for him. My boobs aren't big enough, my hair isn't the right color, it's not long enough, I'm not tall enough."

My mind just kept saying "not enough, not enough" over and over and over again until I went home and cried while I showered, wondering who I would be enough for. If I would ever be enough for anyone, even myself.

The point that I'm trying to make is that there is no limit on hatred of yourself.

You don't have to be over a certain weight or under it.

You don't have to be x tall or boob-size z.

You don't need a certain skin or hair color to be disappointed with the way you look.

All you need is that one person to say "you're not good enough," and more times than not, it's yourself.

**

But no matter what you think of yourself, someone thinks you're beautiful. It's the little things that matter.

Every day I try to find one thing about myself that I can be happy with. Maybe my hair looks good. Maybe my butt looks really great in this dress. Maybe my bra actually makes it look like I have real boobs. Sometimes that's a lot easier said than done. Sometimes it works. 

Every day I try to tell someone they look great or beautiful, or that I love what they're doing. Because chances are, if they're like me, they're too busy telling themselves they look ugly or they're good-for-nothing to do it for themselves.

You have 21 days to confess your love to me.

But please don't actually do that if you don't want to.

As we once again approach my absolute favorite holiday of the year, let's take a moment to reflect upon why I actually hate Valentine's day.

And it isn't because I'm single.

The ever dreaded "single's awareness day," or my personal favorite "shallow attempt to buy affection day" is the essence of commercialization. This is ultimately the reason I don't care for it.

Don't get me wrong. I love a classic RomCom as much as the next person, and think Love Actually is probably one of the greatest movies, closely followed by Pride & Prejudice. I'm a hopeless romantic that dreams of maybe one day falling in love with the cute guy I see every day, or the secretly romantic guy that pretends not to have emotions, or the secret millionaire that has been promised away to his cousin. Okay, let's be real, I'm talking about a combination of Love Actually and P&P. I don't actually want any of these things (???).

The point that I'm trying to make, however, is that I don't hate love, or the idea of it. I hate the exploitation of such a sentiment, so that companies can make a shit-ton of money by raising the price of chocolate and roses for about a week.

I'm in favor of exactly one Valentine's day celebration with your significant other. Everyone should experience just one. Dinner and a movie and a bouquet of flowers. Some fancy restaurant. Rose petals and wine. Wander the streets naked, couldn't care less to be honest. Do something special that might be unforgettable. Do it once.

And then just stop. For the love of God.

Maybe it's that hopeless romantic in me, telling myself that "love is sacred" and should't be something that's bought or sold. Maybe I'm old fashioned.

But I'm right.

Setting aside one day as the day to say "I love you" is like setting aside one minute every now and then to say "hey, guess what lungs, you're breathing! Congrats!" If you love someone you don't need a calendar day to profess it.

As Bryan Adams (and every other love song) says, "When you love someone you'll feel it deep inside / And nothing else could ever change your mind / When you want someone, when you need someone / When you love someone..."

I don't need a fancy dinner or a ridiculously adorable date night to know I'm in a relationship with someone. All I need is to sit on the couch in a stolen sweater playing Call of Duty or watching Netflix all day. Being alone with someone that you care about, and someone that cares about you, is much better than a flashy thing surrounded by hundreds of other couples trying to somehow prove that they have the greatest love since not-Romeo-and-Juliet.

So if you don't feel like going out on Valentine's Day to be surrounded by hundreds of other couples, I'll steal one of your sweaters and play Call of Duty with you.

I'll even let you win.

Let's talk about change.

Humans, it seems, are naturally afraid of change. They fear it so much, that they seek to avoid it, often falling into something that they aren't completely happy with simply so they don't have to seek something else out.

I myself am a victim of routine. I wake up at the same time, drive the same route to work, put my stuff in the same place on my desk, go to the same coffee store, order the same drink, do my daily work things, possibly take a second trip to the same coffee store to get another drink (different from the first, but the same day to day), do the same thing after work, eat the same meal for dinner, and ultimately go to bed after playing through my five lives of Candy Crush before falling asleep.

It's bad.

However the end of an era has come.

Very recently I made a decision (and not lightly, there was a lot of crying and discussion involved in it) that very well has changed the next year+ of my life. After switching my major it's the biggest decision I've made since. As some people know, I've decided to leave my position in the photo department and move on. At first I had no idea where I was going, and then I got an inkling, and then I had a discussion, and then I got a job — as a graphic designer, nonetheless.

It's a step forward. I came to college with virtually no work experience, learned how to ballroom dance, switched my major, got a job as a photographer, stopped dancing, got a job as a photo editor, and two years later I'm a senior with an intent to graduate in the spring working as a graphics person.

My life, if nothing, has been interesting.

There are times where I've shunned change as an overall, but oftentimes I resort to viewing it as a step in the right direction. Although I'm not a necessarily religious person, I am a firm believer that everything is going to happen for some sort of reason. Working as a photographer opened a lot of doors and gave me a lot of skills that I wouldn't have necessarily had prior to. I've worked with people from all walks of life and done so many different things and experienced everything from court to traveling to the middle of nowhere (Wisconsin) and bunny hopping across the seemingly one main road in the entire state after drunkenly eating TGIFriday's at midnight.

I've covered hockey games across the state and got to take photos at the one place of my dreams (Joe Louis Arena), and covered nearly every single game in an entire MSU hockey season — to the point some of the defensemen would smile at me every time they saw me pointing a camera in their direction.

I've made a lot of friends, made a few good photos along my way, and made some self-discoveries. I grew into myself.

This summer I continued to grow into myself. I grew a voice and earned some respect and had an influencing say in a lot of things. I helped contribute to the redesign of a 100+ year old newspaper. I delivered newspapers and designed advertisements and found things that I truly enjoyed doing, doing them with people I enjoyed being with.

People say that the summer before they come to college is a time for change, but I firmly believe it's the summer before your senior year — the time when you start to think about where you're going to be in a year, who you're going to be spending your time with, and what you want to do with it.

It was absolutely a challenging summer, and it definitely wasn't easy, but I've already learned so much and am ready to take another giant leap in order to learn more. Joining the creative team, learning how to do news design and ad design and (possibly) even web design is just another hallway into another set of doors that can open as soon as I fall in love with what I'm doing.

Already something that I'm interested in, joining a design team is certain to bring me to some very interesting places.

And I'm excited about the new direction.

The Evolution of My Future

Someone asked me the other day what I wanted to do with my life -- what exactly was my dream job?

Truth be told I've had too many to count on one hand. I've been blessed with so many opportunities that I really haven't had a solid idea of what it was exactly that I wanted to do.

In high school I wanted to be a famous mystery writer. I had a pen name, a life plan, and aspirations. I even self-published two novels. Everyone told me it wasn't "practical," that I needed a backup plan, like I was some sort of hard drive meant to save the world.

So when I first started college I started as an undeclared pre-med student. As I tell everyone that asks, it didn't last long. They probably wouldn't want a doctor that 2.5ed a chemistry class. Wouldn't really help them all that much.

So I switched my major and had the full intention of being a famous author in general. Back to the life plan. Which sort of fell apart when I realized that it still wasn't a very practical major -- especially since I didn't want to teach. Two years later and I'm still an English major, so I guess we'll see what happens with that. It's since been reduced to "be an author that can maybe finish a book and sell a copy every now and then," but the key is 'maybe finish a book.' Baby steps.

Freshman year I thought for a hot second that maybe I could eventually cut it as a professional ballroom dancer -- maybe as a dance teacher.

After switching my major I got a job as a photographer for a newspaper -- a job which, by so many miracles, I still have. Since then it's gone like this: Wedding photography? Portrait photography?

Last January it was combat photography, then it was sports photography, then hockey photography, back to combat photography, a brief contemplation of circus photography, always intermixed with "be some type of author that maybe finishes a book every fifteen years."

And now I'm back to wondering what the hell I'm going to do with my life. Can I actually finish a book? Could I maybe make it in some type of photography field? Or should I just enlist in the army and attempt combat photography?

Regardless of the constant change I've realized one thing in common with all of my supposed aspirations in life.

Something in my future has to involve story telling. Whether it be in novel form, short story form, poetry. The story of someone's wedding, of a milestone in someone's life. Story through dance and physical expression. The story of war and loss and tragedy, of a team sport, of success, the story of life and death.

Always some type of story.

So I'm not exactly positive what I'm going to end up doing in a year, five years, ten years down the road. I have no idea where the many paths I'm on are going to lead me. Judging by what I've seen and done thus far I know only that it will be different and exciting, and the only thing I can hope to do is one day tell a story that the world can see.