Before reading on, this is in no way intended to offend anyone, especially the elders. This is meant to create a connection and a certain understanding between two very different generations. It has been difficult to communicate in person because in only ends in arguments and conflict. Hence, this post. Basically, this is an open letter to the baby boomers and everyone older than the millennials.

   *Another disclaimer, I'm not speaking entirely on behalf of my generation, please don't get me wrong. Most of these are drawn from personal experiences as well as stories from other millennials. :)

Dear Older Generation,

   Hi. It's us. Your children and grandchildren. We're most probably in our 20s by now. Most of us are already working, but some are still in college studying in their final years.

   First of all, we want to say we're sorry. 

   We're sorry because we're not who you expected us to be. Some of you wanted us to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, and businessmen just like you. But most of us chose to be artists, musicians, historians and liberals. We're sorry if we failed you because some of us did not graduate with honors or did not graduate on time. We're sorry that we're social animals - a lot of us party, smoke, and drink the night away with our barkada and we don't spend time with you anymore. 

   We're sorry most of all that we're too outspoken. More outspoken than you guys ever were. We spend our hours and seconds on the internet and on social media. It's our platform, you see. Back in your day, you only had the papers, the radio and one or two channels on television. We know it's overwhelming, what the power of social media can do. We're sorry because sometimes we get carried away. We just really like to voice out our opinions and speak up for what we feel is wrong in society. We're sorry but we hope you understand why we do it.

   Because we know you had your own way of fighting for our generation. Now, this is our way for fighting for the next (even if a lot of us don't feel like having kids).

   With that said, we want to say thank you. Thank you because you fought for our freedom of speech. Without your generation, we would not be enjoying this privilege today. 

   Most importantly, thank you for raising us. Thank you for raising us the best that you could. Thank you for providing for us. Thank you for sending us to the best schools. Thank you for effortlessly showing how much you love and care for us.

   Lastly, we want to return all of that and we want to say we love you. We're not perfect. (Neither were you!) But we're trying. Every. Single. Day. We try. A lot of us have issues - with our bodies, our depressions and anxieties, our friends and co-workers, even with you. We get up every day extremely lazy to go to school or work, but we do it anyway. Despite it all, we focus on our career more than anything else because that's how we are. We're very driven. We're open-minded. We're outspoken. We're liberal.

   All we ask is for you to accept us for who we are. Let's face the reality - our generations are worlds different in many ways. Your way of thinking is conservative while our way of thinking is liberal. Your idea of a perfect child is successful in their endeavors while we believe there is no such thing as perfect. You perceive love differently from us. You tell us off if our clothing is not the way you wore it in your teens. You think that our generation has lost its morale.

   The millennial generation is known to be possibly the craziest generation, but it doesn't mean that we're terrible people. In your eyes, we may have failed, but for us we've already succeeded. No generation is perfect. You guys screwed up as well, we're sure of that. But you tried your best to raise our generation so we wouldn't commit the same mistakes you guys did. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't.

   What's important to us is for us to be able to bridge the gap between our generations. And we hope that this open letter helps. We just couldn't say it in person (because we all know what happens when two conflicting ideas meet) - but we'll say it here, again - we're sorry, thank you, we love you, accept us.

Sincerely,

Millennials