You hit the nail on the head this time. I am a millennial but I come from a country that was a couple of years behind. At school good grades were praised and bad grades frowned upon. There were some instances that I thought it was not fair that a kid who is just not good at math could not pass. I see the grading system as something that needs improvement but that part is something else altogether.

I was told by my mom that I could be whatever I wanted to be, that I could have everything in the world. That, yes, I, too, was the shit. :D Thanks to that(at least partly) when I finished school I felt like I was facing a wall, the world was not what it was said to be.

Thankfully, I also grew up seeing that unique ideas and innovation was necessary to be on the top. My mind put two and two together there. Now, I am good. I got through my phaze of lost puppy thoughts and I am persuing what I love. In my eyes I am on the way to become ''the shit'' (makes me laugh every time) :D.

Still. On the last years in school, participation awards became a thing. Even cups were given out for participation. Kids got more ignorant and lazy. Some even in my class. Some after me.

We expect too much. We go someplace, open our hands and demand stuff in turn offering nothing. The problem is in the fact that a lot of professions are filled with people who have no clue what they are doing. Now everybody can be an architect, singer, engineer. Anything. Just because they want to and not because of their specific talents.

I have met psychologists who have no idea what they are doing. No sense of recognising a problem. They just work by the book. If the book doesn't contain your problem then you are an alien. I studied Architecture with people who had no interest in the subject or who did not have the capacity for it. In my country doctors misdiagnose people a couple of times at one given moment just because they went for the highest paying job. They slept halfway through their classes but were still let through.

This is a great post and I agree with every word of it. We need to stop being entitled and pursue what we are good at or be ready to work hard to get better at something we have ambition for. Because without it, the best will be discouraged and give less of an effort.