I've come to notice a trend. This trend is something I'm glad I acknowledge but am saddened to admit. Our culture is so OKAY with mediocre lives! Despite pushes to be educated, get a degree, get a well-paying job you enjoy, and essentially live out the "American Dream", more often than not, we will settle for less than what we can achieve. Most of us have had goals -- a dream, even; and most of us changed our course because we felt it was unattainable.

I don't believe the trend simply resets and repeats in each generation, but is instead a chain of influence. I don't place blame it wholly on one thing, nor do I appreciate when someone is blamed for another's short-comings; however, I believe each generation is responsible for the ambition, drive, perseverance, and strength of the next, at least to some extent.

The problem I see is that generation after generation, there are people with failed dreams, living lives of mediocrity because at some point in their lives they were introduced to the "real world." The real world is where things don't work in your favor, where the odds stack up too high to see over to the original goal that brought you toe-to-toe with this wall of odds in the first place. People get to a certain age where they believe this to be the only available reality left. They cast out any aspirations they once had and deem them childish while truly believing it would have been impossible. This wouldn't be such a problem if it were kept to the individual, but when a person falls short of the target and doesn't want to take responsibility for it, they blame the world... when they blame the world, they form a negative world-view...when they view the world as being "rigged against them," younger people take note and understand that to be true.

Now, imagine a culture where people didn't stop at the sight of a challenge. Imagine if the generation before your's was filled with people who pursued great things and didn't stop until they achieved those things! And imagine the result being an entire generation of people who see the world more beautifully than they do now because they tested the limits the previous generation gave them.

Imagine being that generation... What would it look like to be a generation that changes the trend of a culture of comfortable mediocrity; a generation regarded as different. Many of us have already fallen victim to settling for less than what we grew up dreaming about, but let's not oppress the dreams of those who follow because we couldn't achieve our own. I hope for a generation of talented people who pursue outrageous careers and make us reimagine the very idea of what it is to live extraordinarily. I wish to see a change in the trend where people stop seeing the world as being against them and start seeing its challenges as a series of footholds to reach the top.