Just a PSA for some of the younger people from somebody who's pushing forty.

Most of us don't want, as many of you have put it, "You to struggle because we did." If a button existed that we could punch that would assure that every person would have a certain level of comfort, and pushing that button wouldn't cause disasters elsewhere, we'd push it.

If you just want to complain from time to time that life is hard, we're cool with that. It actually doesn't get much easier. There are highs and lows.

It's not that we want you to struggle.

When you take, "I'm struggling." and use that as a springboard into, "End Capitalism!" and telling us that we should raise the minimum wage to whichever number you pulled out of your ass, of course those of us who have been on this planet longer than you are going to put you in your place.

It's not because we want you to struggle as much as we did. It's because your ideas are stupid.

We know that your ideas are stupid because we were in our twenties at one point, and struggling, and had the same stupid ideas.

I'm older, and I still say some dumb shit on occasion. Do you have any idea how grateful I am that MySpace didn't even become a thing until I was a sophomore in college, and it wasn't much of a hub for expressing opinions? I was a fucking dolt when I was twenty.

You know why you're not making the fantasy minimum wage number that you pulled out of your ass? It's because you're not experienced. That's because you're young. You know how I know that? It's because I was young, and inexperienced, and stupid, too. My first employers were probably losing money on me because I was so incompetent.

We don't want you to suffer. What we particularly don't want is for your stupid ideas, which every young person has, and every smart person grows out of, to take hold. If they do take hold, your kids will be the people who are actually suffering. It's your kids who will have to experience what socialism is really like. It's your kids who will have to learn the hard way that going $120k in debt to study Lesbian Dance Theory isn't going to immediately draw an $80k a year salary.

We're concerned for everybody. We care about you, and we want you to succeed.

It's just that we've been you. Since then, we've grown up.

You will, too.