20-Somethings

So, I turned 22 yesterday. I call 22 The Official 21. There is nothing “old” sounding about 22, but it does sound older than 21. For the past year, whenever I have told people that I am 21, most make some kind of snarky remark about when they were 21 and all the mischief they got into, how incredibly young I am, on and on and on. Here’s what I have to say to that- yes, I am young, and I could not be happier that I am still in my early twenties. I love being young, I don’t particularly want to be any older than I am today. But at age 22, I have already been working full time for over a year, so please, feel free to joke around about how young I am, but also remember that I’m not just any 22-year-old. I don’t mean to be a braggart in the least bit- I’m a very young member of the class of 2010, that’s just been my lot, but in many ways I feel that I act perfectly my age. I believe that most 22-year-olds, whether they have full time jobs or not, should have a certain level of maturity, a level that we do not hold our young-20’s responsible to anymore.

So, here’s my rant lesson today- why is our generation responsible for so much less than the generations before us, and who is to blame for this?

I was thinking today about what the age 22 implies- long gone are the monumental birthdays; we’re just counting by 5’s and 10’s now to count the years of our lives down (depressing thought). Twenty-two in this day and age denotes a recent or soon-to-be college grad. Typically, 22’s are on the job hunt, looking for some way to put money in the bank, trying to retroactively fix their credit nightmare they created in college, living at home, avoiding the real world, trying to NOT settle down, living incredibly selfishly, and desiring to live at the level of their parents without the income of their parents, thus pushing them further into debt. This by no means defines the entirety of the 22’s, but it is more the rule than the exception.

When I think about what 22 implied in the bygone eras of our parents, our grandparents, and even our great grandparents, I think 22 looked a lot different. Admittedly, our parents may not have been quite as responsible at 22 as our grandparents were, but I feel as if they might have had a bit more focus, if for nothing else than they didn’t live in a world that bailed them out of every mistake they made. I feel that college had a bit more focus for them, because college was more of a privilege for them than it is for us- for us, it was a right of passage, a 4-year blip of life that was yours to be as immature and self-indulgent as possible. Not everyone had college degrees back then, so it was truly a choice to advance your career by completing higher education.

It’s really our grandparents’ era that makes me look and think, “What are we doing with our 20’s?” “The Greatest Generation” earned their title through unyielding loyalty to country and family, through conviction, through self-sacrifice, and through an understanding that their family’s and their country’s success was their responsibility, that the burden of securing freedom lay directly on their shoulders. And they did not hesitate. They defined for us hard work, perseverance, strength, faith, and courage. I so admire that generation. We are so lacking those traits that made our country what it was, and I fear that we are on the brink of losing what we have in America. That is not fair to their legacy.

Sure, we’ve done so much to advance our nation in many ways since the 40’s-60’s. We’ve become a more equal nation and we’ve advanced technology to a point where life spans are longer than ever before. But we’ve also made ourselves an incredibly lazy nation, one that relies on technology and convenience. We are an instant gratification nation, wanting what we want when we want it, and claiming all sorts of injustices when it doesn’t go our way. This whole idea of who we are today is nothing new at all- you’ve probably heard it a million times over. I, however, want to camp out on the aforementioned topic of what is going on with our 20-somethings, and how we can make them better.

I’ve heard every excuse in the book for my generation- we grew up only knowing technology, we are children of the Baby Boomer generation that got us to this point, we were taught from an early age how to get what we want out of life. Yes, in so many ways, our childhood was marred by the sins of our parents. We’re children of rampant divorce rates, growing up in daycare centers year-round, the “everyone’s a winner” mentality that cheapened hard work. There are certainly flaws in the ways that our parents reared us, but we are not victims.

WE ARE NOT VICTIMS. Yes, we CAN help the way we are, we aren’t condemned to being spoiled little brats that complain about every injustice to ourselves. We don’t have to be ignorant of the world around us, we CAN think for ourselves. We have the ability to take part in our government, to not be so easily swayed by the media. Just because we SEE 20-something’s depicted as “children” on television, doing everything they can to not accept the responsibilities of life, telling themselves that family and career can wait until they’re done with “living for themselves,” doesn’t mean that’s who we are or who we have to be.

I’m tired of it, really. 22 does not mean today what it meant 50 years ago. Why can’t 22’s today be responsible spenders, take responsibility for their actions, invest towards their future, not be fearful of getting married and starting a family. Why are we putting off our lives? I’m not saying I’m completely going against the grain and carrying the torch to “save our generation,” but I would like to stand up for us and say that we can be self-sufficient, hard-working, mature adults and not entitled little brats. I’d like to say that having a steady career that pays the bills is not boring, it’s responsible. Getting married is not the end of my life, it’s the beginning of a new chapter of following the Lord in His plan for my life. I didn’t graduate early because I’m a killjoy, I did it to help my parents and myself as we face the reality of college loan debt.

I’m not a victim of this culture; it may have influenced me, but I take responsibility where I have failed. I didn’t sin blindly, there are no excuses; where I have been selfish, there was a conscious sin nature that led me to disobedience. We are 20-somethings, we’re not children. Stop letting the world tell you that you are. You’re more than a quarter of the way through your life, for goodness sakes. Put your big kid panties on, (wo)man up, and take responsibility for your successes and your failures. Stop letting culture take credit for both. What I’m not saying is don’t have any fun; what I am saying is, have the most fun you can possibly dream up, but work before you play and your play won’t come back to bite you years down the road, and your fun will be a LOT more fun.

You’re not a victim, so stop acting like one.