Keep Your Avocados Away From My Toast

I am all about defending millennials because personally, I’m sick of being lumped with a group of people from my generation who are lazy, have no hopes to own a house someday, and eat avocado toast. I said it once and I’ll say it again, keep your avocados away from my toast. And keep me out of that group of millennials, because we aren’t all like that.

I was browsing LinkedIn one day, which is full of millennial haters, but this article popped up; “We Didn’t Give Ourselves the Trohpies”- Millennials.

The article makes the point that as millennials were growing up, we were receiving these trophies for participation from our parents, coaches, teachers, etc. We were given the trophies, we didn’t give them to ourselves. And I read it and thought to myself, “Finally, someone gets it!”

But then I get on Twitter, my favorite place in the world, and I see tweets saying things like “You got out of bed today! You’re awesome!” or “Maybe you laughed today, maybe you went to class, maybe you cried. Whatever you did today is awesome and so are you!”

Every time we congratulate ourselves or someone else on getting out of bed today or taking a good nap, we are giving ourselves a trophy. And maybe we have different definitions of awesome, but I’m pretty sure staying in bed all day and being a waste of space is not “awesome”.

Waking up every day around 6 a.m. to go to work is by no means easy. Half the time I don’t even want to leave my bed. But, I do it. And I don’t applaud myself for doing it. Just like I don’t applaud myself for brushing my teeth every day. It’s just something that you have to do so you do it. No questions asked, no congratulations given.

Awesome to me, is going the extra mile. It’s having the motivation to not only do the things that you are supposed to do, but also do the things that you don’t technically have to do. Like waking up early every day to go to the gym and work out. Or going in to work early to get that project started, or even staying late at work (and I don’t mean staying late because you got in late). Getting to work on time is awesome and getting your work finished on time is also awesome.  Awesome isn’t staying in bed because you are too hungover to do anything, or just don’t feel like doing anything.  

So, I’m done defending millennials who eat avocado toast and think it’s awesome to do nothing all day, because I feel like I’m just defending a bunch of dumbasses who glamorize being an unproductive waste of space. When you find some motivation to do something with your life, then maybe we can talk again. But until then, keep your avocados away from my toast and keep my name out of that group. 

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