Top 10 Biggest Problems Millennials Face

Never in the history of time have so many people been college or university educated. You'd think that it's a positive thing, having so many smart cookies in the jar, but it's created a major problem. Availability in many major career fields is shrinking at an alarming rate, and today's graduates are struggling to find placement more than ever because of it.

Where I live, there is a serious deficit of available public school teacher jobs, yet people around me still go to school to become teachers because it's a very appealing field of work. I can almost guarantee that most of them will never get permanent placements as full-time teachers in their working life, and it's sad. Welcome to one of the biggest problems Millennials face.

Do you remember learning how to do your taxes in high school? What about learning how to balance a budget, fix your (insert regularly used home appliance here), or keep an organized living space? Most high schools won't teach these basic necessary life skills to students, prepping them for a lot of catch-up work once adult life knocks on their door.

I'm sure there are special classes available to students who'd rather take home economics instead of Spanish (or, in Canada, French), but I feel these sorts of things should be taught to students through mandatory life skill classes that matter so much more than any second language classes.

Uuugghhh. Welcome to my biggest pet peeve. To those whom it concerns, you seriously need to lift your head up and act like a human being. Texting while sitting in a movie theater, crossing the street, walking down your high school hallway, sitting with your family at dinner, or spending time with your friends is rude, self-centered, inconsiderate, sometimes unsafe, and hugely antisocial. You shouldn't have to be told this, but here you are reading it knowing I'm right.

Welcome to the Millennial who rarely uses her phone, usually leaves it at home, and lives with her parents because of epilepsy. Some Baby Boomers did stay with their parents, even if it's something no one would admit.

Okay, I know this is my opinion, but I'm exposed to people every day that make me feel more and more sure about this. I'm going to use music as the example. The masses (today's youth) are more musically unsophisticated than pretty much every generation before them. You may be more or less insulted by that statement, but please hear me out.

It's not that this Millennial generation is stupid. It's that they're not being born into a world where higher-quality music resonates with them. The stuff hitting the top of the charts today is mass-produced to appeal to people who simply require a rhythmic beat to dance to. (I could go on about how danceability has fused itself with music like a symbiotic parasite and won't let go, but that's a whole different conversation.) Repetition and today's angst-driven pop culture topics are the two things that make chart-topping music these days. Some would argue that today's metal music is satisfyingly intricate, but to anyone who knows music, it's obvious that there's no real complexity there, musically.

Oh, wow. I could write an essay on this, but you're probably not even reading this anymore, so I'll end this rant by stating the truth one last time. Music lover's music is not Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or One Direction. It's mostly written by guys who can barely pay their medical bills because their music isn't sexy, current, and shallow.

I have faced both in my life (and, at some level, still do). A problem that is recognized on a global scale is that, more than ever before, young adults everywhere are dealing with painfully high stress levels that won't just go away.

I'll finish this comment by asking you to seek the help you need if you are suffering from anxiety and/or depression. I cannot stress that enough.

We can no longer hide and compartmentalize the dark aspects of our culture and ourselves. We are faced with a society that causes much pain. Hopefully, through our suffering, we can create space in our culture for holistic living.

A few of these list items may come across as less than empathetic to my fellow Millennials, but I assure you that I sympathize completely with the problems you potentially face. I've racked up quite a bit of university debt, for one, and I'm honestly having a less-than-fun time trying to wipe it clean.

More young adults are dealing with debt issues than ever before.

In the future, I will be making a lot of money, and I can save it up then. Right now, I'm gonna live my life!

A few of the items on this list (added by me, at least) have similar ideas behind them. The simple fact now is that today's youth are as in need of their electronic devices as fish are in need of water to live. (Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.)

Can you (provided you are a Millennial) honestly tell me that you could survive even a week without relying on a single piece of tech to get your daily activities done? I honestly doubt it.

Writing letters, knocking on people's doors, and getting up to turn off the alarm are things we rarely experience anymore.

I'm talking about not putting your phone down, refraining from swearing in public, and smoking around people who don't want to get second-hand smoke. Yes, older generations do these things too, but you'd think that humans would be smart enough to stop doing these sorts of things by now, wouldn't you?

I knew how to respect others and use the golden rule around the same time that I learned to speak. What's your excuse? You're responsible for what you know, and you should know better than to act like a moron.

Despite being the most educated generation, I believe today's youth are incredibly guilty of mistaking "opinion" for "fact." Young adults typically rant about politics the most, despite knowing less than they would care to admit. "Truths" are more often unproven than factual when spread around by the average college kid as "common knowledge."

Anyone who insists they "know" that abortion is fine, that there absolutely is no God, or that vaccinations are harmful is lying to themselves, despite never agreeing with that. Here's what is known: Knowing when a fetus becomes a human (and is no longer safe to abort) is completely beyond our understanding, so there's no way to end a pregnancy safely without facing moral consequences. Knowing if there is or isn't a God is beyond our comprehension and cannot be fully proven or disproven, so accept that atheism is a religion based on belief, not fact. Vaccinations are medically proven to be life-saving, and the figures cannot be argued since they are entirely factual. There is no such thing as "disagreeing" with fact.

Finally, everything I stated before "Here is what IS known" is my specific opinion. I cannot claim it to be fact since there is no documentation from any scientific journal proving my statements. Therefore, I cannot and will not claim them to be fact. I believe a large percentage of today's youth would not be honest enough (even with themselves) to admit the same.

Being born into a world where technology surrounds us (this was even true in the '90s, guys) has made it difficult for Millennials to relate to older generations where such tools were unavailable to most people or nonexistent. Can you imagine a world with no internet, where finding anything about anything required looking through a series of encyclopedias? Can you imagine a world where cars didn't come standard with air-conditioning, rear-view cameras, and wireless power door locks?

And those are just the luxuries that were unavailable way back when. Good luck trying to live through a day in the life in 1957, kids!