A generation in search of life
By Nancy O’Brien ’94

eneration X. What kind of term is that? It sounds like a disease or some sort of disease, but it’s the present term for people in their 20s. My generation.

The media spotlight on our generation has made us into a bunch of slackers, a generation lost in “cyberspace” without much direction or ambition in life. But that’s exactly what we are not. We are people who are willing to take risks, unafraid to stand up for ourselves, determined not to let anything keep us from getting what we want. We’re just starting our lives, taking advantage of what life has to offer, searching for what we want.

For once, I can say that calling us Generation X is a positive thing. It says we are a generation of people so wide and diverse, we can’t hold a label. We are a generation unlike all others. We are an X.

A year and a half after college, I find myself sitting in an office equipped with e-mail, color printer and CD PLOM. Got a promotion, Christmas bonus, great benefits. What do I say to all of this? I find myself thinking, as the Talking Heads so wonderfully exclaim, “My God, what have I done?” I ran to the safe haven of the workforce weeks after college to avoid being lost. I took that first job offer. I was on the way to making it big. I wanted to prove that I was not an X, that I was different.

Now, I see I am an X because I’m still searching for what I want. Growing up, I always thought I knew what I wanted to be. At 11, I wanted to be a computer programmer. At 18, an archaeologist so I wouldn’t have to work in an office. At 21, a book editor in New York so I could get free books. At 23, I want to know if I have to decide my life right now. There is so much I haven’t seen, and what I have seen makes me realize there is so much more. I did the Europe thing, conquering countries on a paid vacation from work, with a backpack and Eurail pass. Train rides with foreign kids who became comrades, mountains inches from me in Salzburg, and overnight trains stopping in unknown countries at 4 am, were amazing.

Now is the time to take risks and people my age know it. We can’t get sucked into just one thing, like that first job. Now is the time to be crazy, even a little reckless. We are responsible for our lives and our happiness, even if that means taking off on the spur of the moment. When will I ever get back to Salzburg by overnight train with a bottle of wine and foreign companions?

For the first time since this Generation X phrase and craze began, I am proud to say I belong to it. Our generation is indefinable, searching, not watching the world go by. We live in the world we were given, in a world outside four walls, in a world that was meant to be lived. Sure, we’re scared and confused at times, but in another 20 years we will find what it is we are searching for. Now is the time for us to look for happiness, and we won’t stop until we find it.

_______________________
Nancy O’Brien ’94 is an account executive with Hearst Magazines in New York. She lives in Montclair, but is aiming for the big city life.