Generational battles

We all belong to one generational label or another. I suppose it is natural as we age; we become parents and somewhere along the line give birth to the next wave. With that, we love them, hold their hands while they grow up and somehow educate them along the way until we turn them loose into the world.

Then a funny thing happens; we criticize their generation. And before anyone gets on their high horse, it's not just my generation that does this. virtually each generation becomes critical of the next. They think they are stupid, lazy, no work ethic, essentially none of the traits their own generation had. The older generation is sure the next will ruin the world, or, at least their part of it.

You know what is really odd about this is there is nothing that one generation can point to to lay the blame on the next (or the one after that)...until now!

I had a revelation today about why the upcoming generations don't measure up ... I blame it on Friends! Yes, Friends, the television show!!

Look at it this way. What was this show about other than a group of friends hanging out in an apartment or a coffee shop? These characters basically did nothing all day long and still had all the perks of daily life. Other than Ross who held a permanent day job, none of them seemed to actually work and have a steady job. Joey was a struggling actor, Chandler had an office job of sorts but never actually seemed to be there, and the women just seemed to bounce from one dead end job to another, yet they seemed to have every convenience imaginable. Even their apartments were well furnished and spacious, and for a city the size of New York, there's no way they could have afforded to live in them.

The Millennial generation grew up watching this show. It molded their habits and their behaviors. They became ingrained. They believed they could sit around doing nothing and still have all the modern perks and comforts everyone expects to have in this modern world. The older generations currently listen to younger ones complaining about everything imaginable. They feel they are entitled to _________(fill in the blanks). Everything should just be given to them because they deserve it. Mind you, they often haven't earned it, but, that's just beside the point.

There are many who work hard and take nothing from others they didn't earn, they go out and do it themselves to forge their way in the world, but the percentage of that group to the whole is shrinking quickly.

Thanks Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey and Ross.