[AshleyO]

If there's one thing I find perfectly unfair, it's for past generations to judge our generation from their perspective. You can't do that. Their time was different.

What I have seen is that people use jobs for leverage, not for commitment. You can't or at least you don't normally pick one job and become a 20 year man. That shit doesn't happen anymore and it's because job growth or moving up in a company is hard as fucking balls. You'd have to wait for some old fucker to die just to move up. So our generation does something different; we use job leverage. We work on one job for a year... 2 maybe and then jump from there to a better job with more benefits. Basically, I've noticed that my generation is a bit nomadic in that sense.

Not only that, but I think our generation has a value in work that perhaps the other generations didn't really have. Our parents raised us to find jobs we liked. We work because it's rewarding and do whatever makes you happy... blah blah blah. Well... this is kind of the result of that upbringing. We seek erotic work. It may not pay the bills, but I think our generation, if we're not exactly rich ninis, simply learns to focus on the social aspects of life and not exactly the material wealth.

Right now, I'm lucky. I've got about 2.5 years to go before I get my BA in theater tech. I mean think about that for just a second. I'm using my military benefits to get a free ride through college... for a trade that no one believes in. So why am I doing it? Why am I deliberately committing financial suicide by taking classes that no one thinks is marketable? It's because being poor or going without is something I'm fairly acclimated to. I'm in no means a rugged survivalist. There's certain levels of being poor that I'm sure I'd be straight fucked. But I think what I'm talking about most here is that our generation defines happiness as something a bit more vital than financial security.

I could have stayed in the military. I could have been a 20 year man. I didn't even have to go to college, really. Right now, I'd probably be a new e-6 had I stuck with it. But I'd be depressed. I'd be sad and the confines of that kind of security makes me a little nuts.

I don't have any advice to really give. My resume is possibly one of the most psychotic pieces of work ever. I can only say that I think the old guard generation understands wealth and success a bit differently than our generation. Our time is incredibly unique. Our options are incredibly limited and the older generations didn't have the kinds of road blocks and problems that we have today economically.

I hear we've gotten out of a recession. That jobs are up and people are working. That things have changed. Would anyone care to tell my friends who happen to be working 2 or 3 jobs just to get by that we're finally out of the woods?