There is a man I work with named Andrew that asked me to write about him in my blog. I asked him what I should write about and he kept repeating that there was lots of stuff that was interesting about him but he did not elaborate. So I will write what I know and what I think about him.

Andrew has a B.S. in Sports Medicine and he works as a file clerk for the large healthcare corporation where I am the receptionist for the urology division. So if you are looking for penile implants or vasectomies, you know who to come to. He is a very friendly, personable gentleman in the truest sense of the word but he is a lousy file clerk. He is a lousy file clerk because he does not possess a passion for alphabetizing charts and making photocopies all day long. Why should he? The man has a degree in Sports Medicine for God's sake! I harass him as often as I can about finding a job that is more suited for him, something that will make him happy and give him a reason to wake up in the morning. But like many Generation X-ers (remember that term?) he is doing a job that gives him very little pleasure and I am sure very little money. I suffer from the same affliction to some extent. I work for the same white-collar sweatshop for less money than I am worth because I was too chicken shit to ask for more money at the bargaining table.

So what is it that has affected my generation? We had high hopes, we had dreams! We had degrees in Art history and Creative Writing because we loved to look at and write pretty things and now we are temping, driving trucks or working at blockbuster. I did some research on the internet to try to come to some kind of conclusion. Some call it a midlife crisis or a quarterlife crisis. We get to our mid-twenties to about thirty and we realize we know absolutely nothing. Funny how that sense of confidence a person possesses in their early twenties, that sense of intention and ability to make a difference changes almost overnight into the fears of our parents. There are car payments, the need for health insurance and school loans to repay. We also develop a need for material possessions that replaces our idealistic preference for minimalist furnishings and casual clothing.

Apparently our generation suffers from low expectations. A Promising Generation discusses this affliction which sounds all too familiar to me.

The author, Mike Bellah, writes:

"The greatest strength of this generation may lie in what many see as its greatest weakness, low expectations. According to a Roper poll, only 21% of Xers rate their future as very good. In this they are more like their Depression-era grandparents than their boomer parents.
Yet, like their grandparents, Xers are more likely to find a way to endure tough times. They will accept low-paying entry-level jobs. They will live at home in order to afford college. They will delay marriage and child-bearing. In short, they will do what it takes to survive."

Sadly, the author goes on to say this will lead us into happiness because all of our hard work will result in success which will exceed anything we ever expected. Yippy for us. I disagree. I think our low expectations are leading us right into a rut. Will we recover? Maybe, when we are mad as hell and not going to take anymore. But will our rut of low expectations leave us in a place that we can make effective change? And if yes, when? If Andrew stays in his job as a file clerk for very much longer, the space between his potential as a graduate of a Sports Medicine degree program and his extensive career as a file clerk will grow. He tells me, "it's not what you know, it's who you know." Perhaps there are not so many people in our generation that have that charmed a life. His low expectations are reinforced by his belief that should he want to work for the NY Jets rubbing mineral ice into sore muscles, it would be provided for him by someone other than himself. Would it be luck or chance? A happy coincidence? Perhaps, but it would be something unexpected I imagine if he were to just submit his resume or reply to a job posting in the newspaper. A dream job received simply because of one's own credentials and merit? Yeah, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya.

The average person is so disenchanted by the economy, the internet bust, corporate accounting fraud, stocks plummeting, unavailable jobs, outsourcing, the rising cost of living, the increase in gas prices, and so on that they have pretty much fucked themselves into a corner. Generation X was unfairly labeled as "slackers" but we are working very hard. We are hamsters running in a wheel and getting nowhere. But we never really expected to get anywhere, did we? All we want to do is make it to payday. To survive.

Maybe it is this notion of low expectations that makes us so reluctant to vote, to act out, to protest our government. So I ask all of you if there is a chance that we will recover from this depression across a generation. We can't seem to motive ourselves out of our jobs as file clerks, receptionists, starbucks coffee pushers, and blockbuster movie slingers, so how can we hope to motivate our country out of war and imperialist pursuits and into a global community based on compassion and equality?

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