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In Defense Of My Generation (Generation Y)

6/3/2013

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I am the first one to admit...there are plenty of problems with my generation.
I often find myself sick of the overwhelming laziness...the fact that so many of them think about  no one except themselves—never saying please or thank you, no respect for money, no 
responsibility, ADD up the wall. 
So many in their own little worlds, oblivious to everything going on around them...
conversations changing as rapidly as an internet
search engine...like this one time...at that place...
with that guy...
oh look, something shiny!

I'll be honest...
my generation pisses me off,  
and I say it.  
I say it often.  

But the one thing that pisses me off more than my
shortcomings of my own generation
is listening to a member of the previous
generations talk down about it.
Throwing words like useless, selfish, incompetent at us
calling us “the period, worst period, generation period, ever.”

Complaining about the lack of a bright future
thanks to us...
pointing the finger as if they are just
innocent bystanders.
As if we somehow just manifested out of thin air,
fully grown with all our faults
and they had no involvement in our development whatsoever.

 We didn't raise ourselves did we?
And for the many of us that did...that's problem number one.

For all our faults at least I can say MY
generation didn't raise the most useless selfish incompetent generation
ever...that was all you...

But that's bullshit.
Because there are good things about my generation.

You gave us the internet...but we made it better.
Social networking—the marketing of the future
the international connecter that allows groups and organizations that feed the hungry, help the sick, raise awareness for autism, breast cancer, woman’s rights, human rights, civil rights and every right, cause, purpose imaginable at our fingertips in an instant...that was us.

Our culture is the most diverse culture in years
because our friends are everyone, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, gay, autistic,
handicapped, blind...
we grew up together, we love each other.
And prejudice, while not completely gone
is a sickly 90 pound weakling in comparison to
the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of its past incarnations

We don't see the world by imaginary divided lines because on any given day we can be talking with friends from Canada, Mexico, China, last night I played chess with people from Italy, Spain, South Africa, Australia, north Korea, and I wished them all good luck and said good game whether or not I won or lost and no matter where they came from.  

And for what we lack in office etiquette and practicality, we are the most educated generation in the history of recent history because for every lazy member of this generation
you have someone who spent hundreds of hours in the books, doing papers, making
presentations, skipping the weekends with the friends, never going out drinking,
never playing video games, studying 6 hours a day to pass those tests and
graduate suma-cum-laude

only to be stuck in an endless job search back and forth, month to month, year to year
in a world where PhD’s drive taxi cabs
and when we dare to complain about any of this those same people who were the
ones who MADE us the promise that an education and following the rules meant
success now look down on us for expecting what it was that we were promised and
have the NERVE to call that “entitlement.”  

When I take a look at the world you left to us I see it as
overpopulated, underfed over incarcerated, under-employed-over addicted, non-compassionate, non caring, over militaristic, economically failing collapsible loan bubble leaving what used to be the land of opportunity the land of flipping burgers til you're 40, so I seriously want to know how the hell with that cracker-jack job on your track-record you have the NERVE to look down on us?

It's not our fault for why the world is the way it is today...
But I do admit, it is time we got off our
over-theoretically educated lazy asses
and actually did something to fix it
because let's face it
we have a lot of work to do.  
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    About Ishwa

    James P. Wagner (Ishwa) is the founder and publisher for Local Gems Poetry Press. He is a poet from Long Island and sits on 3 local poetry non-profit boards. He has edited several anthologies and believes in poetry's power to make a difference. 

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