Why my generation will succeed. My generation are the first ones to actually care about what our grandparents have to say. My generation is full of doers... We are sick of what has always been talked about and ready for it to happen. Our parents looked to freedom, to break free from the machine, to be individuals and to tell the world "screw you I don't have to listen to you, I can do what i want." we grew up in a world where we were constantly told by our parents and society that we were special. In our own way and at our own unique time we all found out that we weren't. Whether it was failing at school or sports or simply realizing that every movie and tv show we grew up with tried to feed us the same message... That we were different, special, and joe schmo would rise above the pack, be the next hero, live above the matrix... We stepped outside our bubble and realized we had been lied to. Our reaction wasn't one of hatred, but rather of disappointment we were familiar with and should have expected. We came out feeling like a kid who just learned about Santa's relationship with his parents; we didn't want to believe it, and we kept trying not to, but there was no escaping the truth. We could no longer accept the rainbows and butterflies world we were told to believe in. One by one we realized we couldn't escape the reality our parents tried to get away from their entire lives.
We as a generation found ourselves in a place that was, and is, very real; a place there was no escaping, and a place we were not too fond of. My generation is composed of realists, the first ones to understand that the great depression was not necessarily a once in a millennia hap and circumstance; we understand instead that we need to listen and learn from our elders... That instead of the generations before us that feel like they have already made their choices in life and the future is not their responsibility, we believe, nay we know it is ours. It is my generations responsibility to take back the world we believed in as a kid, throw away the veil we have been fed, and make this place, our only place, a home worth living in.
We are not content sitting around and watching much longer. Bit by bit we are taking this world by the horns and often forcing the reins to skip a whole generation. We are powerful and smart workers, but we understand what we don't know and are willing to admit it. There are many many skills that we don't know yet, but we are becoming ever more conscious that we do not want to be a skills-devoid community, generation, or country. We take control not for the sake of having command, but for the sake of re-bridging the old time realists and the new age that technology is capable of. Using the wealth of experience our grandparents have the keys to, a retooling with technology, analyzing and reiterating until we get it right.
Don't feel threatened by my generation, we have no contention with you. We will not always be right, but what allows us to succeed is something with had to grow up with... The ability to adapt to our surroundings, learn from the resources we have available, and make decisive moves with what information is available. We grew up with technology, with it constantly changing, with new software requirements every year, new computers twice as powerful every eighteen months of our life. We were born with the first computers. We are the wave of transformation, the bridge between the old and the new, the technology savvy for our elders and the historical link to our posterity.
When mom and dad need to know how to use the stereo system to watch Legends of the Fall late on Friday night, who do they call? Us. When kids are looking up to the LeBron's and Duane's of the world, what generation is that? Ours. When you look at the most recent additions to the Fortune lists of richest and most powerful people, who is it? Us. When you look at who is driving the movement for re-skilling, urban gardening, and sustainable futures; again my generation is driving the bus, running the companies, creating the jobs that did not exist when we were in the career center in High School.
There is a market change happening right now, right under your nose, and it will not stop at any individual's will. We are not a collective that needs centralized leadership, but rather with real-time communication feedback and a willingness to work toward each others goals, making them our own, there is no telling the tally we will amount, the real change we will envelop, and new face we will give this world when it is our time to return to dust.
