Being 17 in ’22

We are starting the 23^rd year of this millennium.

We hope for health, both physical and mental, for ourselves, our family, friends, and all we associate. We seek deliverance from the COVID-19 pandemic and its variant mutations.

This will happen if we all want it.

It’s called total buy-in. Re-dedicating ourselves to a common mission by a worthy community.

There’s so much doubt that this will happen. Greed. Power. The mistake of conflating freedom for narrow self-interest all misleads and kills in unimaginable numbers. Tragically, with the miracle of the vaccines and the available technology, it is possible to reduce the pandemic to an endemic in short order. But we fall short.

It’s simply crazy not to want to act, and yet here we are still doubting the very existence of this dreadful disease. It’s easy to give up and feel powerless to do anything out of fear and resignation.

Why try? Does it really matter?

I want to talk to every 17-year-old person out there.

Those who will be finishing high school this year. Yes, you!

HELP!!!

We need you to become Worthy Warriors to save our country and world!

I was 17 once. There was a defining moment in August 1969 where my generation found its voice, political and cultural power. The Woodstock Music and Art Festival, which took play on a farm in the Catskill Mountains in New York State, drew over 400,000 and launched the musical careers of some of rock music’s immortal icons. For me, it was a mirror for my peers of what could have been.

Plenty of films captured the organized chaos and the arrival of a changing of the generational guard. I encourage you to watch some of it. Here are just some of the images.

We are now mocked as Boomers.

That’s fair.

We should be.

We squandered our youthful passion, energy, optimism, and creativity. In 1969, we wanted peace, love, understanding, and equality for all. We wanted to end racism, poverty, and most of all, the costly and senseless Vietnam War that was killing us by the tens of thousands for what? And we actually were successful in getting the politicians to end the war by saying enough!

When Sly and the Family Stone played “Higher” in the middle of the night, imagine the thunderous unified voice in the natural bowl of Max Yasgur’s field retort to “I wanna take ya higher!”

“HIGHER!!” was the refrain of a generation taking their place at the collective power table of America.

So, what happened to those kids who shared their last piece of bread with their neighbors when the food ran out at Woodstock?

We sold out.

We stopped giving a damn about others.

We sold out our noble values and purpose for money, greed, self-centeredness, collective stupidity, misguided power, and pathological narcissism.

On behalf of my inane, vacuous generation, I want to deeply apologize to all of you who are 17 for the profound mess we made that is destroying our country. We wonder if we have a governable nation. It is also the concern of many countries, including our friends to our North. Canadians wonder what will happen to their country if the United States of America devolves into a dictatorship.

Fast forward to 2022.

You have endured a pandemic for nearly two years. You cannot have that time back. School is somewhat of a joke. Teachers assign work. Maybe you get it in. Maybe you don’t. On one hand, you are sick of screens. On the other, you spend hours deep into the night playing with friends. What else is there to do? The academic skills you need are hopefully coming on board. Your social skills lag as if you needed any more awkward moments. Dating? How does that work? Just talking. Hanging. Chillin’. Maybe hooking up? Maybe not.

WTF! This all sucks. No fun.

School spirit? Where did that go? Oh yes, sports were canceled due to the pandemic, and with that, maybe some scholarship money. Everyone is sleepy, Dosing off in class if it’s in person. Turning off your camera on Zoom. Lot’s of weed, vaping, and alcohol out there. Zombie students in the halls.

My colleagues and I see you for treatment in our mental health practices. That is if you’re lucky to find a practice with openings. Many of you feel that you are not prepared for what’s next in your life. How can you be? There’s no script for this movie. We’re winging it as we go along. Nobody wants to hear the answer, “We don’t really know.” But that’s the inconvenient truth. Here’s another.

Americans hate Americans.

The ethic goes: “We can’t agree on simple realities from which to draw a common perspective, so yours is wrong and needs to be crushed by whatever means possible.”

When you think of it, guys, we have institutionalized high school bullying into our greater adult society. How can a country survive living like this? The answer is it can’t.

So, my 17-year-old friends, if you’re afraid, anxious, and depressed, how can you not be?

Makes total sense to me.

Let me sketch out how you can fix this massive sh**storm. You are our only hope.

1. You need to hear the fire alarm going off right now. This is not a drill. Don’t ignore the warning. You have no idea how much collective power you have as a generation! Find it and fast! If you want some ideas to guide you, check out the Worthy Warrior pledge and the Worth Citizen declaration here in the resource section of the Being Worthy website.
2. You will be eligible to vote in the 2022 midterm election in a matter of months. You need to register to vote. You need to get your friends and family to register to vote as well. Anyone who is not registered to vote needs to do so. It’s too important. Then, when the primary elections happen this year, you need to know the candidates and what they stand for as well and vote. Not only in the primary elections but also in the general election in November. You are voting for people who are supposed to represent your interests, not theirs or their political party’s interests. Get in line. Stay there for hours if you must. Get there early before the polls close or you’ll get shut out. If you can vote early in your state, do so. It may be the very last time that’s allowed if certain legislators have their way.
3. You need to be alarmed and aware that the United States of America, a hybrid social-capitalistic democracy is being threatened. If a candidate is elected in a free and fair election in a close or clear majority, many state legislators are working right now to make it possible that the results can be thrown out. Simply put, the loser wins. Courts could back that up given that the judges are often political appointees of the opposing, losing party.

Think about that. The minority of the electorate can have the power to govern no matter the outcome of the election.

The tail wags the dog.

Those in power will seek to remain in power by legal manipulation if you let it.

2022, this very year, could be the last free and fair election that we will ever if the 17-year-olds don’t show their power and influence. The will of the majority of the people will not be served and it will be exceedingly difficult to unseat corrupt legislators who are in power for their own personal agendas or power brokerage.

The insurrection which nearly toppled the United States government in an organized coup happened one year ago this week. You watched in horror with your own eyes. Yet there are those who spin what you saw as something else. No big deal. What you heard; you didn’t hear. Orwellian!

The choice my friends in 2022 is whether the United States of America, this awesome experiment in governance, remains a democracy where your voice is heard through your vote or falls into an autocratic dictatorship where you indeed don’t matter.

This is part of an international trend (China, Brazil, Cuba, Russia, Turkey, and the Philippines as examples) where people become numb with all the shocking news and every day struggles to pay attention to the bigger picture. As a result, you are manipulated to feel powerless and then turn on your neighbor.

And do you know what? Autocrats want that to happen. That’s their playbook. Divide and conquer. It goes together with their sociopathic personalities. {Watch “Our Brand Is Chaos”- a dark comedy that is strangely real now.)

My 17-year-old Worthy Warriors, please wake up!

Rise up and feel your strength in numbers. Your great grandparents were born during the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed over 685,000 Americans at the end of World War I slightly more than one hundred years ago. They became early adolescents during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The fought an existential war to defeat the nationalistic Nazis and Fascists in World War II.

Like you, they had no playbook and were not prepared with far less resources available.

This time the threat comes from within.

YOU decide what kind of America YOU want.’

YOU decide who leads and where they take us.

YOU decide what happens to the future of America and the world because what happens in our country profoundly affects the rest of this planet for better or worse.

Find YOUR inner worthiness. Use YOUR immeasurable technical skills, creativity, directness, energy, and potential dynamism to take us in an extremely hard corrective turn.

Do this quickly.

Do it with YOUR love and all YOUR might.

Please give a damn and never sell out!

Save us from ourselves ✌️.