I was watching a debate between a 30 year old and a college student between 18-22.  This was regarding a hyper-sensitive topic and the student asked the man if it felt good as a 30 year old to challenge students to these debates.  Not moments before that same student had talked about rights and knowing what their rights are, how autonomous they were etc.. Not even 30 seconds later, they’re implying that because the 30 year old has more experience that person shouldn’t be challenging kids, that they’re being bullied when hearing the truth. My friends, we can’t have it both ways.  You’re either adult enough to take the action and deal with the consequences, or you’re young enough where you need guidance.  Because the one thing that is severely lacking today is accountability.  We can’t be the villain and the victim on the same topic, switching between the two when it’s convenient. That to me demonstrated exactly what is wrong with this generation.  They feel bold enough to enter a debate with anyone and when they are challenged on their point of view using straight fact, they claim they are being bullied.  There’s a life lesson in that for everyone: we can’t be both villain and victim.

There are people out there who want the world to be what they think it is at all times. Those who believe in perception as reality.  We’ve had this conversation so many times before and it’s still a hard one for me.  Perception and opinion on a matter are not fact so we can’t say it’s reality.  We can say our perception is perceived as reality—that’s fine—but what we believe isn’t necessarily fact.  People take discussion of fact as violence and an implication of oppression.  The problem is we aren’t taught how to be who we are supposed to be.  We are taught that life is a struggle while not having to work for anything so we never develop the skills to actually figure out who we are.  We create scenarios of the utmost ridiculous nature to the point it can’t even be taken seriously. Life is hard, there are challenges, not everything is fair.  But we don’t get to be entitled enough to think we are victims because someone doesn’t agree with us.  Disagreements aren’t violence—they’re a platform for discussion.  As a society we’ve lost the art of discussion and debate as the rise of keyboard heroes rises.  Everyone has an opinion and a platform to discuss what concerns them and, to them, that is sacred.  We’re brave behind the screen.