the shift of my generation

I see and hear quite a bit from older generations talking about mine, insulting us, saying we're lazy or complaining about the way companies are changing to better suit the current needs of the people. I say: What would you have us do?

Mine is the generation that will need two incomes to raise a family - and that's without any sort of extra frills. Mine is the generation who will find new and easier ways to do things, because we have to work so hard just to stay afloat. Your generation pushed us all into college, into bettering ourselves, and now many of us have degrees that were obsolete the moment we stepped across that stage at graduation.

You say we're lazy for ordering everything online, for wanting things here and how - but we don't have the time to wait. We don't have the time to spend hours at the grocery store on Sunday mornings. We have to get to work just to survive, while Uncle Sam comes knocking reminding us that we need to pay back that money for that time we spent in college, that we aren't even using for anything... while the medical bills roll in telling us that "oh, that wasn't covered by your insurance, so you owe us a thousand dollars for walking into our establishment." You act as though we live off the government, but I have never received a dime - despite being penniless and having to sleep on a friend's couch at one point, and having to rely on the kindness of friends who gave me canned food to live.

You act as though it's a bad thing that jobs are eliminated that just don't make sense anymore in today's society, while new jobs are created for those willing to change and adapt with the times. You act as though companies have some sort of moral obligation to pay someone to do a job that doesn't even need to be done anymore. 

My generation watched everything change. We grew up on rotary phones, and having to look things up in real hard-copy encyclopedias. We learned to use a card catalog in a library. We learned to type on a typewriter. And now, the world is literally at our fingertips. The world changed so quickly, that companies disappeared one by one - they just weren't ready for the change. They refused to adapt, to rethink their business model, to become what today's world needed them to be, and now they're gone. They're empty shells of buildings, sad reminders of the blue light specials and giraffe mascots of my youth.

Yet you tell us we're lazy, we're not good enough, we're not as strong as your generation.

We are just here trying to survive.