Why The Only Way Gen-Y Will See Changes In The World Is By Speaking Up

I think we could probably change our name to Generation Fear.

Fear not only of our futures, but more so, if we have a future at all.

Just about every month, it seems like something tragic happens. Lives are lost, people are sad, people are angry and more lives are lost.

A month later, those lives are still lost, but people aren’t too sad anymore. They continue on as if a month ago, they weren’t in a complete rage that our gun laws are ridiculous, or that the government seems to have no idea how to handle any of this.

We're not sure we even know how to handle it.

We’re growing as adults in a world where it’s become normal for a school shooting.

The sentence, “really, another one?” has been thrown around year after year with not the slightest bit of change.

We see people lose loved ones every single day, and we’re almost becoming unfazed. We're not unfazed in the sense that we don’t care what’s going on, but unfazed in a way where we know exactly what’s going on, but are too scared that it could happen to us too.

We know we have to watch where we step and what we say.

We aren’t living in fear because people have guns; we’re living in fear because people are using these guns. We aren’t living in fear because we aren’t doing anything to stop it; we’re living in fear because we don’t know how to stop it.

We don’t know, and not knowing is the scariest part of all.

We don’t know if tomorrow, another shooting will make headlines, or if our office will catch fire. We don’t know what tomorrow is going to hold in almost all aspects of our lives, and that’s a scary thought.

But, there has to be something we know in all this unknown terrifying mess.

We know we are an entire generation of humans who are tired of being afraid.

We are tired of seeing violence on television and poverty in our neighborhoods.

We know it only takes one small voice to cause one giant wave. We need a motion to restart our world, and make it the home we deserve to live in.

Our generation has a huge voice.

We are individuals who have a desire to be our own bosses. We have an extremely hard time having other people tell us what to do, we are independent, strong and to put it bluntly: We are pains in the ass.

But we know who we are, and we know what we are capable of. We know we can overcome this fear. We don’t have to live in a world where we are scared or timid about what or who is standing outside our door.

The change happens when we decide to stand up to it.

We shouldn't be Generation Fear; we’re Generation-Y, and we have a lot to prove -- mostly to ourselves. We have a world to build and our whole lives to create.

The memory of all lives lost by tragic events drive a new force: a motion to break out of fear and bring on peace.