You are a generation that has developed a natural affinity for keeping things real and I love that. Are you ready for some real talk? Let's dive into the world as you know it.
If you are an early career professional or someone going straight from undergrad to graduate school, here's what that means:
In 2007, Apple gave the world the first smartphone. This means, you have never not had a smartphone. You have never not been connected. All the world's information, for as long as you can remember, has been in your pocket. Every social, political, financial, national, international and personal issue has always enjoyed a level of amplification that no generation before you has ever seen.
Before the era of smartphones, you saw your parents put in endless hours of time, effort and devotion to their employer. They missed out on traditional family activities but provided for you in ways they never had. But then, everything changed. Despite that amassed professional record of dedication and loyalty, the world entered a global recession and all of that dedication and loyalty seemed to count for nothing.
For you, it meant years of unavoidable stress, moves to new homes, downsizes, going without, and scaling back on the dreams of what you hoped pivotal events like prom and high school graduation would be like. Most important of all was the unconscious programming you went through due to a life lived in two eras; pre-recession and post-recession where you watched pre-recession truths being undone by a post-recession reality. Informed by your pre and post-recession juxtapositions, you knew you would not repeat the same mistakes of your parents as you entered adult professional lives. You would begin to push back on a system that demanded more from you than it was willing to give in return.
Because some of your most formative years were cresting on the waves of this century's most disruptive technological advancement and sociological strife, you have been tied to a level of social awareness like no generation before. Your conscious development has been informed by a ubiquitous need for social change and you are increasingly confused by the needless barriers erected preventing such change.
Party lines and the historical arguments that have been used for generations are becoming laughable to you as you are a generation that has always had the world's information in your pocket. It has become instinctual for you to validate what your elders are passing down because time after time after time, what you are hearing is not consistent with the data you so easily and often have access to and you are fast approaching the point where you are no longer interested in entertaining the delusions of dull, uninformed, old white men.
Instead, you have made a point to go to the source and when that is not possible, you have sought the next closest thing, and when that wasn’t possible, you have been responsible enough to do your own research and ensure you are pulling from reputable resources and you have stayed true to this laborious effort for one primary reason. You have remained humanely connected to your empathetic nature.
You have embraced empathy and understand the struggles of others, even without experiencing them firsthand. You've seen your parents let go by companies they gave their all to, which has only fueled your determination to break free from a system that undervalues hard work. You understand suffering because you have suffered and have refused to forget what that felt like.
For you yourself not only had to endure your parent's turmoil as they navigated you and your family through a terrible recession but just as the clouds were starting to break and just as you were beginning to launch your own career, you were hit again with yet another catastrophe.. Just as you were about to find your own path, a global pandemic struck, throwing even more obstacles your way. But you're no quitter.
Your transition into adulthood finds you putting the pieces back together while fighting back against the lie that you’ve been told that if you have no job, you have no worth. You know now that that simply isn't true.
You know your parents weren't lazy. You know you aren't lazy. You know it's way more than bad luck or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are now realizing the system is operating as designed because since your parents were born, productivity has quadrupled but wages have remained stagnant, barely keeping pace with inflation over that same time period. The only thing that has matched the increase in productivity has been the increase in the number of billionaires.
You are beginning to get it. You are beginning to refuse to parrot the argument that parity, equity, fairness, and equal access to opportunity will crush the economy and runs counter to the American dream. You are beginning to believe, after seeing first hand, that it has been the lack of those things that has crushed the economy and is killing the American dream. You are no longer satisfied with the pace of social change. You are no longer satisfied with the dogmatic defense of the status quo.
Change is not a battle cry for you. It's a moral imperative. A change will indeed come. It will come at a pace and a volume like the world has never seen because of everything this world has given you, has shown you, and has done to develop the person you have become and are becoming. You are the change the world needs now. A change is indeed going to come.
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