I've heard my generation labeled many things. Mostly negative. It always surprises me to hear these labels slapped on, so judgmental, so uncaring. As if the generations criticizing my own are not partially responsible for how I've turned out. As if they have no liability, as if they're not my parents and grandparents. I've been told we are selfish. Lazy. We want handouts. We're glued to the boob tube, want everything for free. I've reflected, "Do they know the 20 something's I know?!"
But I'm not spending my time blaming others, contrary to how I've been judged. Rather, I'm writing my perspective. My experiences. I'm at the place in life where I look myself in the mirror and say, "What do you WANT to do? What impact do you want to make?" Because believe it or not, we do that, my lazy selfish generation. We want to make an IMPACT. We no longer live in the world of studying one thing for life and hoping it pays our bills. I read recently that the average adult has around 11 jobs before settling into their official career. That's right, jacks of all trades. We have the ability to study thousands of ideas within a small time frame, technology has placed the world at our finger tips. This ability leads my generation toward revolution. Why? Because we can learn, conceptualize, and challenge any topic within the space of an hour. We can push beyond the education given to our critical parents. We can learn quickly and challenge thoroughly not because we are smarter but because information is free and hastily accessed.
I'm not lazy, apathetic, or selfish. In fact my dreams involve the ultimate goal of serving other human beings and our planet. I've seen these same desires rise in my peers' goals. Nearly every 20 something I know has big dreams, revolutionary dreams. And nearly every 20 something I know has some elder generational person telling them they can't do it. I've watched a dear friend tell his mother of his dream to become a successful doctor and to retire serving those who normally receive no medical care. She laughed. In his face.
I once told a baby boomer woman of my dreams, my big dreams. She told me that when I had children I'd forget about all of those "silly" dreams and focus on the day to day.
See the problem with not being taken seriously lies in the fact that those who do not believe in your dreams are the self same people telling you you're a lazy, selfish slob. They don't hear you. And they certainly don't believe in you. And to be told in one breath that you're the generation that will ruin this world, and in another breath being laughed at for dreaming of saving this world... Well that is what you call dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. The federations that laugh at our big dreams are the generations that put us down to begin with. They're also the generations that helped raise us. We're not biting the hand that feeds; we are being slapped across the face by the hands that fed us.
I discussed this writing project with a friend today. She mentioned that the problem between our generation and the older generations lie in what's important to us. She said our elders don't listen to our hopes because our ideas are conflicting or unimportant with their own. I think she's right. As our generation moves toward marriage equality, we are leaving behind a generation that ignored the inequitable treatment of the LGBT community. As we worry about stopping global environmental catastrophe, we're leaving behind generations of people who were unaware or indignant to these concerns. We're moving forward. They're staying the same. We're cleaning up messes they made. And yet they refuse to value our ideas or believe in our causes.
I have no doubt I'm not the first to feel twinged with the sadness of realizing generational gap. I can recall some of my favorite artists, from various eras, remarking similarly. What is difficult for me is that we've not moved past such small thinking. I look at my son and know he'll do, be, and create far beyond me. And I honor that. I hope he will. I know this world depends on each generation becoming better than the last, our species most certainly does. I am willing to cherish the moment my son comes through my door, beaming with the smallest yet most powerful concept of them all: an idea.
