Gotta Get Down To It

"You say you got a real solution

Well, you know we'd all love to see the plan.

Don't you know it's going to be alright?"

- The Beatles

From a young age, the value of education is established into the minds of United State-ians. We are told that in order to obtain a decent living we must acquire a reasonable career, which can only be landed with a college degree, & the only way to be accepted into a respectable college is by securing high marks throughout high school & earlier. Please don't misunderstand me- I firmly agree that education is a necessary part of what makes a well-rounded individual. As a (somewhat) recent college graduate I've discovered- along with thousands of other recent college graduates- that a Bachelor's degree will not really get you anywhere these days. Most recent college graduates are living on wages that are considered around or below the poverty line, add to that the fact that we're paying off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans & our finances become a source of nausea, anxiety, & denial. When we graduate, a small percentage of us know exactly what we want to do with our lives & the rest of us find some type of safety job to spend years discovering what we actually want in a career. It's an unsettling place to be.

Egypt has been the hot topic throughout the past two weeks. As I dug into the demands & causes behind the protests I started to discover that the majority of protesters are under thirty & unsatisfied with the state of their lives. Their wages force them to live in poverty, & the government, being aware of their circumstance, has not done anything to better their condition. The difference between them & us is that their level of poverty is significantly lower. Having an unstable governmental situation in Egypt is no doubt alarming, but I cannot disagree with the protesters attempting to peacefully disapprove of their circumstance. Their demonstrations have brought against them brutalities that seem in many ways a parallel of a certain Ohio tragedy back in May of 1970.

We have been promised change, but no change comes. I'm not calling for large demonstrations or civil unrest, but I'm unsatisfied with the false hope that seems to be only smoke & mirrors. I no longer want to live in a state of discontent, I think it's time to start being the change & creating it for ourselves.