As recently as three, maybe four years ago, I struggled with my own perceptions of ‘my generation’.  I found abundant ways to criticize my peers, and myself, for our trivialities, our banalities, our bizarre tendencies to interact in abstract ways, our apathy.  I was annoyed by our eagerness to wallow in premature nostalgia for the decade in which we were born.  I was disgusted by our narcissism.  I hated the way we embrace the voyeurism that the internet allows us.  I scoffed at the self-gratifying memoir-writing, blog-posting, accomplishment-announcing, trauma-glorifying proclamations we make.  I sorrowed over the way we fomented jealousy, arrogance and neediness by gorging on each others triumphs, setbacks and compliments.  I felt angry that our parents sheltered us, coddled us, told us that we could do anything we wanted, to the point that we all believe that we were really, truly special.  And, typical of all the aforementioned, I was even sad that we, that my generation, grew up in a time of plenty, unchallenged by any outside forces or events to demand of us, and in doing so, define us.

It wasn’t until very recently, maybe three, four months ago, that I realized how grateful I am for all of this.

Last September, I moved to a new town, something that used to be a regular habit of mine.  I hadn’t done that for several years.  I had a hard time the task of finding a job in a strange place, something that I have also done quite a few times before, albeit not during a recession.  Suddenly all of the stories I’ve heard about the unemployed became a little more real to me.  I have to qualify that statement, because I have a few things that diminish the specter of long term unemployment:  I do not have kids (and the responsibility to provide for them).  I am not middle-aged.  I have no debt (thank you, scholarships).  I have three totally different, viable resumes.  The panics that I felt must have been a mere shadow of the terror that some people are living.    To wake up, and have maybe an hour or two of bright happiness with your family where you don’t think about the rest of your day:  an afternoon tinged with desperation, filled with resume-submitting, phone-call making, and internet-searching.  This is followed by a sleepless night of panicked realizations and absolute, crushing hopelessness.  Every day.  Over and over again.

We are in the middle of a recession, staring at the possibility of years more of it, with even further to fall.  Am I happy that my generation spends a lot of their time waiting for their recognition?  Feeling entitled and disproportionately special compared to the next person?  YES, yes I am.  For the first time, there is something demanded of us.  We have to crawl out of our massive debt, and pay, for the rest of our lives, taxes to take care of our aging parents, without any promise of the same resources to care for us.  We have a fragile environment that we will continue to rely on, and resources to stretch thin.  We are not going to have the life our parents had.  To get through this, we are going to have to be more creative, more resourceful, more forward thinking and more self-sacrificing than we have previously been capable of.  For the first time, we have a chance to prove ourselves and maybe, someday, probably not in our lifetimes, earn the recognition that we are all accustomed to and desire. 

Will my generation be able to do it?  I don’t know, but at least our own greatness is one thing in which we all believe.  Its a start, of sorts.

Here's hoping that we can live up to that.