A controversial introduction

I'd like to start this blog with a slight disclaimer: I am a what is commonly referred to as a Millennial.

Yes, that's right, a Millennial. Generation Y, GenMe, the ever more influential demographic and young men and women born roughly between the years of 1980 and 2000. Or, as we are far better known, "the kids who spend all of their time texting and think the world should just give them whatever they want."

So sure, I will submit myself to being placed in that group. I was born in 1986, several months after the Challenger disaster and several years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I grew up on X-Men cartoons, Nintendo, and Nickelodeon, and I endured the Great Recession in 2008 along with everyone else, watching as my job prospects eroded away bit by bit. I text, as actual phone calls seem to have become all but taboo in any event other than the most dire of emergencies or in the event that one must speak with elderly family members. I learned how to use a computer early in life, and I utilize the technology that I am expected to know how to use, including various forms social media. I am ambitious, and I have many lofty goals that I hope to achieve in my lifetime. I want to travel someday. I have little trust in the economy. I tend to vote more liberally on some issues. I have student loans and thus I have student debt. But this is where most of the similarities between myself and my fellow Millennials ends.

I say all of this now because as a "victim" of this generation (which some have grimly dubbed a "lost generation"), I tend to be lumped into a certain stereotype reserved for some of the most loathsome individuals within the 18–35 age range. You know, those kids that can't look away from their smartphones. The ones with a sense of entitlement. The ones raised with the belief that they were "special" in some way, that the world somehow "owes" them this or that. The delusional young men and women who believe that they will become famous with little or no effort on their part, who believe that they are destined to meet and marry their "Prince Charming" or "soul mate," having no basis for this belief other than their extensive knowledge of the Disney films. These are the people who see the world through rose-colored lenses, taking every criticism as an affront to their very humanity, every setback a major life event that they will never bounce back from. These are not the people I associate myself with.

I would like to think of myself as a hard-working individual, or at the very least, someone who worked for everything he has. I have always viewed laziness as a weakness, and it is one I will never identify myself with. I grew up poor, and I feel no shame in that. I went to a public university on a scholarship that I fought to obtain. I struggled through college hungry and penniless, and only when all other options had been exhausted did I return home after graduation, defeated and weighing just 115 lbs. Thus after a brief period of disillusionment on my part, I began a job search that I can only describe as obsessively relentless, and I would toil away the next several years paying debts and clawing my way to my goals at a snail's pace, one at a time, first landing a job where I could sit down, then an apartment closer to work, then a usable vehicle that would not break down on every trip, and I continued to work and push myself until three years later, I at last found myself in the career I sought and doing the job I had been trained to do.

Do I still believe the American Dream can be achieved? Yes, but I am more prone to believe in the idea that the American Dream started with: the idea that those who separate themselves from the rest, who bust their asses for little or nothing just to have a the slight shot at achieving something big, might have some chance of realizing prosperity; this is how my parents raised me. And prosperity is not living in a 40,000 square foot mansion with two Ferrari super cars parked outside. It's not walking the streets of Hollywood while adoring fans throw themselves at you, worshiping you as their new idol. Prosperity is that feeling you have one morning when you wake up and realize that you owe nothing to anyone and that you have the means to pay all of your bills by going to the job that you don't hate. Make no mistake, in the post-recession era, that is prosperity, and it is more than most will ever achieve.

But this blog isn't about me, it's not about my generation, and it's not about inspiring people to work hard for their dreams. So now I'll tell you about Mustangs.