for my generation...

I read an article the other day about my generation. It talked about how we value experiences over possessions. We value that which connects us with those around us more than with what we can or might in the future, acquire. And, for the first time in a long time, I appreciated what we have brought to the table. I more than anyone have been hard on my generation...but, reading those words, thinking about who we are, the people who make up this great mass of humanity that I get to call my own, I was damn proud to be, for the first time, born when I was.

Do you know what we've done?

We have stood up and bucked the system.

We have said, no, I don't really dig this whole 9-5 thing, or in most cases, this whole 8-7 thing. I don't particularly want to be chained to a desk, so I won't be. I don't want to waste this one life I've been given, slaving away for someone else's monetary gain. I want to use my body as a canvas, painted with who I am for all to see. I want to grow my hair long when others think it should be kept short because of my gender. I want to cut my hair short when others think it should be long because that's what appeals to the opposite sex. I want to love who I love without boundaries or stipulations, despite gender or color or culture.

We have screamed that we just want to be us. Not boxed in or held back. We have proven we do, in fact, have fantastic work ethic, we just want to break the mold handed down to us of what traditional work looks like.

We are your facebook, instagram, snapchat, and social media creators. We are your designers and freelancers, forever pushing social norms and redefining the game. We are the ones that run wild and free. We are chasing the back of the north wind, because we have somehow tasted the elixir of a short life, and want to cram as many memories, connections, and experiences as we can into a single day.

We have sought out mountains and valleys, oceans and lakes, choosing tents over hotel rooms. We have composed music that shatters normalcy, connecting us with those listening, if just for a moment. We have recognized the beauty in written and spoken poetry, in pictures posted for the world to see, and we have somehow, magically, created ways to support ourselves through our crazy ideas that no one thought would ever work.

This is who we are.

We are your extreme athletes, extreme philosophers, extreme writers, artists, mathematicians, parents, daughters, sons. We are striving each day to live out what we are passionate about.

We are....millennials. For better or worse, this is who we are.

And I am finished. Finished with being ashamed of the generation I was born into and grew up with. I am finished beating down those I stand shoulder to shoulder with. For we are so. much. more. than others give us credit for. So, for those who are mine, for those who walk with me here and now in this  small space of time and humanity, I am proud of us. Of you. Of who we are.

Let's keep striving. Let's keep fighting the good fight. For love and hope and all that sums up who we are. Let's pass on to our children the value of memories made and lives lived well, filled to overflowing, and drunk of deeply.

We will only walk this way once. We cannot walk it again. Let's make it count.

~Jade