I think our generation is redefining maturity. It used to mean things like moving out of your parents’ house, and getting a job where you have to wear a tie to work. But we’re changing it to things like moving out of your comfort zone, and getting a job where you can make a difference in the world.
The lines between my generation and my parents’ are more blurred than generations past, part of a developing trend . The baby boomers of my parent’s generation were only the advance guard of a revolution that would redefine the rules of childrearing and growing up. Between Generation X and their parents, a lot more Gen-Xers went to college, got married at older ages, had less children, were more interested in their careers. The process of throwing off the traditions of our parents began fermenting then, and was eventually distilled into Generation Y or the Millenials.
Gen-Y is such an apt name for this generation; we’re always questioning the status quo. Why should I get married? Why should I take a 9-5 job? Why did they start naming generations at the bottom of the alphabet?
But the Y-revolution (the irrevolution) doesn’t stop at questions. We’re taking the world by storm, molding it to suit our constant demands, and in doing so we are shaping the future. We are making the beds on which we, and our children, will have to lie. This sculpting of our medium is primarily cultural but we are effecting ripples in the pond of existence which will touch the shores of years to come.
Look at the social upheavals in Egypt, Libya, Wall Street. Young people with newly minted purpose, united by technology, are declaring themselves present and accounted for in a world which is just now sitting up to take notice. If it is the mantle of each successive generation to define the world we ascend into then our task is no less serious whether we accomplish it through social media or on a battlefield.
Whatever the arena our lines have been drawn in the sand, and they will know us by our symbol:
well read robin 