The biggest debate this week at work has been how millennials are entitled and lazy. I find this topic very interesting as a millennial that works really hard to acquire assets and keep climbing the creative corporate ladder. Millennials are not lazy. They’re just better than you… Sometimes

Have you ever been at work and hear management speaking about how Millennials are lazy, entitled and all they know is taking selfies?

The Baby Boomer generation especially—love criticising Millennials. If you sift through the morass of anti-Millennial articles that have been published, you’ll notice that almost every critique boils down to the same point:

Millennials are entitled. (I know, I am rolling my eyes too)

People who say this kind of stuff usually has a litany of stats to back up their claim, things like:

• Millennials change careers four times before turning 30.
• Over 30% percent of Millennials live with their parents at 30.
• Over 35% still receive financial help from their parents.

But do these stats really point to entitlement? Are Millennials entitled because of an anaemic job market and student loan debt? I believe that people criticise Millennials  because they display something more Baby Boomers can’t relate to, something that is totally unfamiliar and something that they can’t comprehend with which ends up being misrepresented as ‘Lazy and Entitled’

The Baby Boomer generation—the people who raised Millennials—defined success by three things:

1. Status: Boomers want to end their careers with authority over other people.

2. Prestige: Boomers want a title and position people respect and admire.

3. Financial Security: Boomers want a life with financial guarantees.

Anyone who defines success as status, prestige and security is seeing life through the lens of scarcity.

Status is about power over others. Prestige is a title. Financial security is an entitlement. Boomers want external rewards that justify their decision to buy into a bankrupt system.

Millennials see this broken system for what it is. They see how miserable their Baby Boomers parents are, working jobs that don’t matter, for companies they hate. They see how meaningless their lives are, and how they try to use the markers of status and prestige to pretend otherwise.

Please try and argue with me about the point above? For 15 marks. I dare you bbz. We see most of our parents struggling in 9-5 jobs they loathe. Then have to come home, help with homework, make dinner, and read us bedtime stories? Kuphi boo?

And then they saw their parents lose “safe” jobs in 2008. The security was an illusion.

Millennials have straight up rejected this system. They won’t give their lives away just to “win” an unwinnable race. Instead of the illusion of financial security, and the scarcity of status and prestige, Millennials have two primary ways they measure success:

• Millennials want to be a part of something they find meaningful. Their work needs to matter, both to them and to the world.
• Millennials want to build deep, authentic connections with people. They want real relationships.

Notice that neither of these goals can be awarded to you, they are goals you have to own and achieve for yourself. That’s exactly what Millennials are doing.

In 2011 alone, almost 30% of entrepreneurs were Millennials. They launched 160,000 startups a month. Millennials build companies they find meaningful and are only fulfilled when they believe they’re adding value to the world, not just making the rich richer.

Sssshhh… I’m not done. Still serving this tea.

The question is, why do Baby Boomers (and other people) see this as a bad thing?

Why Boomers Misinterpret Ownership As Entitlement

Here are the life-blueprint Boomers bought:

• Study something you don’t care about in college because it looks good on a resume.
• Apply for a safe job with a career path that is clear and structured.
• Give away your twenties, thirties, and forties grinding yourself into oblivion for your company.
• Hope that you end up at the top of a grist mill.

Their success is 100% contingent upon how valuable they make themselves to their employer, and how much crap they accumulate. Boomers see success as zero-sum. Your title comes at the expense of someone else. They believe that young people should be queuing up for these soul crushing admin positions because they WANT people beneath them. People at the top of the system requires new entrants to prop it up.

If you’re a Baby Boomer reading this post… Askies I’m sure kuTense lapho on your side of life.

However, Millennials have no interest in that kind of life. Millennials are succeeding precisely BECAUSE they are rejecting the system that Boomers built their lives around.

For Millennials, getting in on the bottom of the ladder in the hopes of someone else rewarding you is the opposite of taking ownership. Boomers, on the other hand, can’t imagine a version of success that isn’t given to you by someone else.

When Millennials say they aren’t interested in the pointless grind Boomers put themselves through, Boomers see that as entitlement. Succeeding without sacrificing your 20’s is, in a Boomer’s world, cutting in line.

And if you don’t agree with me…

Parts of this post was extracted from Thought Catalog