You may hate us but we still have love for you

We often hear as Generation Z that we are too “soft”, that our feelings get hurt too easily. I can’t even count how many Facebook posts I see where older generations are talking about how much they dislike Gen Z.

They don’t like how often we are on phones (but you can’t get most of them off Facebook), they don’t like how we won’t call over a server at a restaurant or how a lot of our generation is focused on humanitarian issues instead of economics.

Well, some might see it as bad, I think its time to look at it in a new light, that instead of soft we are just empathetic. 

We care more about a stranger more than ourselves.

I will tip even the worst of servers and the thought of not, bothers me. I hate when my older family members talk about how bad service is while we are still in the business. 

I don’t want other people to feel bad, even if some would say it is well deserved. 

Is it really a bad thing that I don’t want someone else to feel bad about something that seems so minuscule and was nothing more than an inconvenience?

In high school I traveled a lot, I would fundraise for these trips and then travel with other students and teachers. 

One of the biggest culture shocks, being from rural Wyoming, was the homeless populations around the world.

When we (The other students and I) saw these people struggling and begging for money, we gave it to them. Our teachers were often appalled and would tell us not to waste our money. 

Why is it that helping someone else was suddenly bad when they teach empathy in the classroom?

Another good example happened a week ago to me and two of my friends. We were on our way to Rapid City when the car in front of us suddenly slammed on their breaks to take a sudden turn. 

One of the trikes behind us was able to stop but the trike behind her, struck her from behind.

Both bikers were thrown off, we stopped as did many other people, including the car in front of us. 

Once people realized that everyone was alive (mind you, one of the bikers was still on the ground unable to move), they all left, they had lives to live I suppose.

In the end, the only people who stayed were us, three college kids.

We were the only ones who offered to help move the trikes or help them with whatever they needed. 

We stayed until the end; we were there for well over an hour.

Once we got in the car, we all talked about how we never could have felt ok leaving, even if we had not been directly in front of them. 

None of us would have been ok with not staying until emergency services arrived.

I’ve seen, even college students that barely have money to eat, donate money to those in need. 

We tip $10 on a $20 ticket and we don’t ask for things if it means someone else will have to go out of their way. 

Well, these are just some personal examples,  I find that most people in Gen Z believe that nothing is more important than a stranger.

We have seen the struggles of past generations, the great depression, the holocaust, the civil rights movement and want to ensure that people will not suffer like that again.

There isn’t many people in this world I wouldn’t be willing to take a bullet for.

We aren’t soft, we just want a world where people are more important than power, money or ourselves.