Fortune favors us: the American millennial. We were born in the luckiest place, at the luckiest time in history. Our generation, both the largest and best educated in history, is provided and expects welfare programs, a developed and robust economy, public transportation, emergency health care, rule of law, accountability of our leaders, economic mobility, constitutionally guaranteed individual rights and on average eight decades of life.
On March 8, 1983, President Ronald Reagan declared the Cold War rivalry a “struggle between right and wrong,” and warned against “the aggressive impulses of [said] evil empire.” The message was clear: Communism would not stand.
Awash with tears, forgotten homework and calls home, David Saul Smith Union stood aghast as Wolf Blitzer announced the 45th president. Laden with shame and frustration, conversations covered evacuation to Canada, the handling of Donald Trump-supporting Facebook friends and pleas to follow the popular vote—in disregard of the Constitution.
There are two common categories of identity: those we choose for ourselves and those into which we are born. The former enables proactive, dynamic and deliberate self representation, and it is fashioned by freedom. The latter indicates our heritage and original impressions.
