I’m a Millennial, and I’m not entitled. But many of my generation feel they are.

I recently had a disturbing conversation with a young man finishing up college. He said he had witnessed one of the most “degrading” things in his life.

What was it?

A college student coming home very late at night (past midnight) from work, while they were in school.

“That’s just not right,” he bemoaned.

I promptly replied that if I were him, I would praise God in Heaven that that was the most degrading thing I had ever witnessed.

The tragedy, however, is that too many Millennials, having been raised in the richest, most prosperous, most advanced, wealthiest society in history, think this way. I happen to be more optimistic about my generation than most. That being said, Millennials are in trouble, as is the broader American culture which spawned them.

I escaped this sensitivity to “degradation” common among my generation, for three primary reasons, all having to do with the values my parents taught me.

I grew up in a middle class home — usually at the lower end, but never above the middle range of the middle class. The first house I remember us living in was in a poorer neighborhood in the San Diego area. It had one bedroom, and that was shared by me and my two younger sisters. They got the top bunk, I had the bottom one. My parents just laid out sheets and pillows in the living room and slept there. Our front and back yards were simply dirt with a few globs of grass here and there.

My parent’s economic position did improve as we got older, but we were never by any stretch of the imagination wealthy. My dad always worked very hard, and my mom, in addition to raising us, worked full time, and finished her degree so she could achieve her dream of becoming a teacher, achieving straight A’s in the process. The one year of my life I was homeschooled by her, I went from being under my grade level in reading (a lifelong love of mine) to five grade levels above my grade.

Eventually my parents owned their own home. They showed us what hard work could achieve. It was all the more remarkable since both of them came from broken homes, particularly my mom, whose dad died when she was 12, who experienced foster care for a period of time, and who often had to live with other family members because her own mother was not able to take care of her, which gets to the other reason I was inoculated from the Millennial entitlement virus.

With both their example and their words, my parents pounded into me a set of values. My dad always said he would fully support me in anything I wanted to do, on one condition — that I give it my all. He taught me that there are no dreams worth giving only half your heart to, and so whether it was school, music (I’m a concert pianist), or writing, research, and speaking, I had that most basic component of any happy and successful life: an unbeatable work ethic.

Which gets me to the third reason: my parents expected me to apply these values to my life, and in learning to do that, I welcomed numerous mentors into my life who could help.

I’ve heard it said there are four levels of consciousness: data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Our age is likely the data age, but maybe eking its way into the information realm. What we really lack today is wisdom. As a young person, the examples of the adults in my life made this abundantly clear. I eventually realized that, while we are all bound to make mistakes, why not mitigate against them by actively pursuing wisdom from those further down the road than you, who could tell you about its pot holes, its dangerous sections, and the rest?

So beginning in high school, with the encouragement of my parents, I sought out just such mentors. To this day, besides my parents, the first 10 or so entries on my “favorites” list on my phone are mentors.

But I don’t just ask them questions — I have flat out told all of them that they have an absolute right to speak into my life whatever they think I need to hear. Now, this doesn’t require that I necessarily agree with them, but they are people of such wisdom and stature in my life, that they are more than deserving of the right to be heard without me arguing back.

Wisdom, encouragement, and correction from people like this made my own post-midnight nights during college (of which I had more than my fair share), the intermittent Top Ramen diets, and the times of financial distress not just bearable, but teaching moments.

But those times taught me what I was made of, clarified my values, built confidence, and have led to success.

None of it would have been possible without my parents and mentors, their example, and the values they taught me. And as it turns out, those hard times are, in retrospect, some of the most precious memories I have. They were the forges in which my values were tested and applied, and they passed the test. I wasn’t entitled to my dreams working out. I had to pursue them myself.

Such were the values with which I was raised.

That is why I have so little sympathy for the anti-values of this complaining, whiny, handout-expecting culture of ours. In fact, I despise them. They are the things that bring down nations and empires. They are the acid breaking down our society, and I, a Millennial, intend to spend the rest of my life fighting them.

Because I am not entitled.