Generation NOW!

Congrats Barack Obama on winning the Iowa Caucus!

Old-fashioned values versus New Age ideals... The older I get the more I look back over my life. I grew up in a time when traditional values - community, home, hearth, interdependence and family - were waning yet still remained apparent amidst the changing times... My generation has the best and yet the worst of both worlds. We had more freedoms, more privileges, and most of us had parents who worked hard to provide us many of the luxuries they never had. Yet sometimes we are masters of everything and nothing... most of us have owned or tried every electronic known to man, we've experimented, we are the MTV, BET, Clinton kids who have seen and heard it all and it shows... And we are the first generation to earn another life stage affectionately called the transition stage where many in our generation moved back home with our parents/grandparents, decided to try different jobs, many unrelated to their undergraduate major, until moving forward into the world. We are the AIDS generation... under our transition from childhood to adulthood we've seen everything live and in living color. Before there was Tila Tequila (who is a farce as far as I'm concerned) there was the original REAL - MTV's THE REAL WORLD NEW YORK with Heather B and Kevin and the gang. The internet grew from chat rooms to CollegeClub, Blackplanet and now, MySpace and Facebook.... We started off with our parents cherished 8-tracks, records, then cassettes, and CDs... Then came Mp3s... Wii... HDTV.... TIVO... Wow - we're come a long way. But we also had the worst of both worlds... Many of us aren't sure whether to wear pants or skirts... and that goes for men and women... We don't know WHO should pay when we go to dinner. We were fed mixed messages and those mixed messages both define and fracture the foundation of who we are... But it is who we are... We are the eclectic ones and it is where we gather our strength. But, we are getting older, and as we become fathers, mothers, corporate execs, board members, business owners, and beyond... we must take with us the best of both worlds - the traditional and the new age, the eclecticism -and create a better America. We have seen much in our lifetimes and in the past 8 years as many of us have come of age, graduated from college, started working, gotten married (and in some cases, divorced).

In this election this year... Let's not only vote, but let's get involved in the political process. Let's make our voices heard, because you know we're called the lost ones... the ones who got lost in the shuffle... the apathetic ones... the complacent ones... But I think we're strong and we still have a lot of fight left... So in 08... Let's speak out on the things that matter to all of us - and I'm not just talking about Reality TV and hip hop... Let's make sense of the world around. I'm looking at my watch and its time. We can't use the excuse that we've got milk breath. We can't hide behind our parents. Let's begin creating a better America today.

Let's get started!