Magazine Letter From the Editor
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he year is currently 2016. I think this year is one that we should omit from the history books. This is why: David Bowie died. Brexit happened. Kanye West had that weird breakdown and cancelled his concert tour. The modern day is to put it lightly, crazy. And here we are stepping into the spotlight as a generation. But you know what millennials do the best? Better than any generation? We’re so damn optimistic. We see the world that we are about to inherit and rather than run in the opposite direction, screaming, we’re facing it head on, constantly thinking of ways to improve it. Does that make us the smartest generation? Well, probably not. So what do we have to look forward to? Well, the Cubs just won their first world series in like, 108 years. There’s kids suing the United States government about Climate Change. Hell, we might even colonize Mars in our lifetime. The world is currently in this state of ambiguity, hence the name of our magazine. Never before has humanity lived in such an uncertain era. The Internet and modern technology are constantly changing the way we interact as human beings every day. So what can we do? Well, we have to embrace ambiguity. We have to look uncertainty in the face and say, “You keep doing your thing. I’ll be over here trying to get a job other than a barista at Starbucks.” We have to not be afraid of what’s to come. We have to speak up for what we believe and take up causes that we support. We have to look at the future and stop fearing it. Because we are Millennials. A generation where some of us have lived in two separate millenniums, and two different centuries. We are pioneers on a great adventure that could shape the course of human history to come. And if we mess up maybe we can just move to Mars and pretend it never happened.
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Design Director: Tanvi Jain Contributors: Abigail Dunlay Alex Singleton Franklin Wallace Jon Laframboise Megan Kiely Rachael Barnhart
“You keep doing your thing. I’ll be over here trying to get a job other than a barista at Starbucks.”
“We are pioneers on a great adventure that could shape the course of human history to come.”
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A House Divided I Am a Millennial and Pets are My Family Envirnment Vices Individuality in Millennial Social We Are Not Robots No Need For Money The Duality of Time Anarchy I am a Millennial and I am Ready to Start a Family Anti - Envirnment Virtues Our New Canvas Anti - Social Are We Still Human? Careers Contextual Research Methods: Kwela Hermanns IDUS 215-01
Obama Health Care Speech to Joint Session of Congress (whitehouse.gov)
A House Divided By Rachael Barnhart
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f there is one thing that we can all agree on in politics, it’s that it could use a few fixes. We are super involved with politics and for good reason. The things that we depend on in our government might not be around when we need them to be. So it’s no wonder that millennials have taken such an interest in the system. Through a multitude of ways we have become extremely active. To protesting the president (#notmypresident) to rallying in grassroots campaigns, millennials are one of the most politically aware generations. 61% of millennials voting in the past United States’ election wanted a democrat in the White House. Why? It could be that the democratic party has recently started to hold views that more and more of us identify with. ⅓ of young Americans say that they’re not 100% straight, according to a survey from YouGov. A democratic government would continue to protect the rights of the LGBT community. This is one of the many views that the democratic party has toted which speaks to our generation’s strong moral values. The difference from previous generations being that our morals are more open and accepting. The left side
has also held women’s rights in very high standards supporting a woman’s right to choose abortion and equal pay for equal work. For a generation that prides itself on doing the right thing, these can be more appealing than what the conservatives have to offer. It could also be that the democratic government would cater more to our “shareconomy” mentality. The best example of this would be Obamacare, the national healthcare that was put in place to help all Americans get health care. t It is said that 2016 will be the last election that is dominated by the previous generation, the Baby Boomers. With more liberal ideas coming in we could see a complete switch from a red congress and president to an entirely democratic government. This is of course unless the right starts catering more to liberal viewpoints. Their emphasis on nationalism could be focused on putting more money into education and less on protecting the second amendment. It is important more now than ever to pay attention and stay informed. The world will be shaped the way we want it to be as long as we remember that we have voices.
As we go on in Amerca our interest in politics will become more vital than ever.
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I Am a Millennial and Pets Are My Family
By Megan Kiely
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hen it comes to future planning more and more of us seem to be putting off getting married, buying a house, and having kids. There is one thing we’re not waiting for: pets. At this point in time, research suggests that millennials are about half as likely to get married as past generations were. The desired number of children on average has gone down from 3.6 to 2.6 over the last thirty years. While the number of pet owners of this generation has skyrocketed to 63%, compared to the 46% of Generation X and 48% of baby boomers. But why has there been such a harsh change to the aspiration to achieve what past generations would have defined as major life events? According to a recent survey 51% of millennials said they would rather adopt a pet than have a child. As a millennial
myself, I have to agree. I’m not ready for children-- I can barely afford to take care of myself, let alone a helpless infant. And with student and personal debt at an all time high, I can see how others might feel the same way. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of “Generation Me.” said that “Pets are becoming a replacement for children. They’re less expensive. You can get one even if you’re not ready to live with someone or get married, and they can still provide companionship.” This quote describes me and many of the millennials I know perfectly. I was recently talking with a friend about her choice to adopt a third dog. As a single 27 year old female with no suitors and crippling student loan debt, she uses her “dog family” as a comfort and a form of companionship. “I guess
I just got tired of coming home to an empty apartment at the end of the day” she said. “Dogs are easier and less expensive than getting married and having kids, plus there is still so much I want to achieve. I guess I just don’t want to be tied down to anything.” And again I have to say I agree; millennials as a whole have become an experience centered generation, with about half of all millennials saying they would rather spend their money on experiences than a physical product. It seems like we may have started putting off marriage and children to achieve other goals earlier in life like travel or checking experiences off of our bucket list. I guess between the cost and the responsibility of traditional parenthood we can’t help but replace children with pets, for now at least. Of course, the cuteness and unconditional love that pets offer isn’t so bad either.
Environment
The Risk to Our Sustainable Future
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By Rachael Barnhart
ollution is slowly destroying the world and we feel helpless when it comes to making a difference. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the time to put forth the effort to save our environment. At least, that’s how older generations perceive us. The effects of pollution on our planet are quickly spiraling out of control, still reeling from the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. We see our politicians ignoring our pleas to reprimand big business, as they continue to hurt our environment. It seems that on the stage that is environmental care we are merely part of the background. Millennials get bad rap for “not paying attention” or not being aware of societal issues, but one thing we care deeply and passionately about is a sustainable future. We work toward this through a variety of forms of activism. 37% of us will “pay more for a product for a cause we believe in.” (millennial marketing). Some brands that are consistently working toward a more environmentally sustainable future are Marine Layer, Adidas, Tesla, and General Mills. We want to feel good about the things that we buy and use, knowing that by taking small steps as individuals, we can create a much larger impact together. By using our economic power we can shape the global marketplace by saying yes to sustainable products. Another way we can revolutionize the world is by opting to taking the bus. Every time we choose to take public transportation over driving cars to work, our carbon footprint is reduced by 10%. If more millennials started following this trend, our collective carbon footprint would dwarf that of prior generations’. The world doesn’t know what to make of Millennials. A lot of us are making a return to nature and a return to simpler times. We want the future generations to be able to do this too. We must ignore our ever surmounting fear that
it is too late to make a diffeence and continue to make strides forward in what we want. Each and every one of us has the opportunity to not only have a voice, but a loud one. We can campaign for politicians who will care about this issue, we can make choices at home that will lessen our carbon footprint, and we can know that together we can create a positive impact toward a sustainable future. We just have to have the willpower to do it.
Plastic Water Bottles take at least 450 years to degrade in landfills
The Recycle Foundation http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/water-bottle-pollution/
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s Millennials we have many conflicting views and ways of life, we tend to live in a way that would seem contradictory. We have millennials that seem to not trust the government to such a degree that they are growing their own food in order to consume all natural and organic food, while at the same time are excited to overindulge in drugs and binge drink alcohol. As a Millennial who seems to fall in both camps to some extent, I find the duality between Vices and Virtues of my own generation to be interesting. With our generation it seems that just breaking into adulthood presents its own temptations and vices that a young, wellnatured, God-fearing person might not seem too comfortable with. Millennials tend to binge on alcohol more than any other generation and not by a small amount, a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 26.5% of people, ages 25-34, had admitted that they had binged on alcohol in the past 30 days. The next highest percentage was people in the age group of 18-24, 26.1% of them had said the same thing. Both of those age groups are considered to be inside the millennial generation
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and the next highest age group statistically being high school students, with a percentage of 20.8%. This is not a close third place by any means, and I find it interesting that under age students binge drink more than the older generations. We seem prone to gluttony and over-indulging in things such as alcohol, sex, and drugs. Now even though we do not have quite the same level of experimentation that was occurring during the 1970s or even the early 1980’s based on The National Institute on Drug Abuse, just under 40% of twelfth graders today smoke weed. Based on that statistic it can be assumed that our sense of chastity and reluctance to binge on vices or lack thereof would make the nearest grandmother uncomfortable. When we are getting ready to socialize, what is it that we need to get before we go to a party? Alcohol! It’s very unusual to go to a party or social event where there is no alcohol to be seen. It has become very commonplace for us to see beer cans and bottles of Jack Daniel’s being shot back. It is also very common for us, young adults, to indulge in marijuana and smoking cigarettes. Why is it we try to numb the experience
of socializing with drugs and alcohol? Why do we try to make time to go by faster through binge drinking and doing drugs, and why are we more likely to do it when in the company of friends? These are the questions that keep me up at night. These, so called “Vices,” even trickles into our political views, whether it be prison reform or legalization of marijuana and other drugs. With marijuana becoming so common day for us, it would be extremely hypocritical for us to want to enforce a law that jails people for such everyday habits that many people have. These “vices,” seem to even encroach into virtues, when we see people getting arrested and jailed for things we do everyday, it reminds us that not everyone is perfect and that, in-turn, helps us put ourselves in others shoes. These are the dualities that dwell inside most of Millennials. It is very interesting as to why we have such an attraction to vices. It may be a little bit of the excitement of what adulthood is like and unfortunately, at the same time, it may have something to do with a fear of growing up. We are just getting out of high school and are already being thrust into a new life of adult responsibilities. With the fears people have surrounding c u r r e nt events, many are not too thrilled with their interpretation of what the future may hold, especially
with our new President-Elect, Donald Trump. These acts of binge drinking and drug use could be a sign of young millennials trying to hold onto adolescence or prolonging their ascent into adulthood. If you ask me, adulthood is something you want to hold off on. By Alex Singleton & Abigail Dunlay
By Alex Singleton
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hen young Millennials indulge in drugs, it is very common for them to enjoy their favorite music while experiencing their high. No matter who you are or what your interests are, everyone likes music. These are some of the best songs to listen to enjoying one’s vices. • • • • • • • • • • • • •
I’m a Thug- Trick Daddy Nosetalgia- Pusha T Hurt- Johnny Cash Placeholder- Story So Far Light My Fire- The Doors Rigamortis- Kendrick Lamar Smoke 2 Joints- Sublime Smells like Teen Spirit- Nirvana Blueberry Yum Yum- Ludacris Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash Everlong- Foo Fighters Sober- Childish Gambino I won’t let You Go- O.K. Go
Individuality in Millennials
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illennials are an ambitious and careeroriented group of people. When they are not pursuing their long-term dreams, they tend to focus on the fulfillment of their own immediate, generally materialistic and physical drives and appetites. They show less interest in ethical or spiritual matters than past generations. Individualism is, thus, a common trait attributed to this segment of the general population, who in outward appearance advocate caring more about self-satisfaction than about others’ opinions of themselves. Yet they remain highly concerned with their own self-image and its projection on all forms of social media. The writer Jean Twenge considers them part of a group of people called “Generation Me”, finding them to be generally more narcissistic and entitled than previous generations at the same age. Marketing agency SYZYGY replicated these findings in a recent (2016) study. Males are generally worse than females, the study finds. ...Other surveys indicate that Millennials are less aware of the political landscape than previous generations. They are also less work-centric and less accepting of authority in the workplace, and are increasingly more unemployed and in debt – and yet, ironically, remain the generation most optimistic about the future. The quality of individualism is not, however, necessarily a depraved or immoral attribute. Among other evidences for its widespread presence in the most populous generation today, are the facts that the average member of this generation remains concerned about being independent in all matters of living, and prefers experimentation by themselves instead of following the popular opinion. The Millennials are focussed on having their own personal identities and attempt to express themselves uniquely. They are inclined to confront social conventions, and to both foster and celebrate anarchism. Yet, with unemployment levels reaching record highs, there are those who cast aspirations on the future economic prospects of the Millennials, precisely because of their individualistic philosophies. Across the world, the Millennials have distinguished themselves in history for their infamy of being the first generation to be earning
less than the previous. A recent Bloomberg report noted that, “the earnings and employment gap between those in the under-35 population and their parents and grandparents threatens to unravel the American dream of each generation doing better than the last.” This occurs despite their having the highest college attendance rates among all their predecessors, and being projected to make up about half of the entire workforce in the U. S. by the end of this decade. These individualistic philosophies also give rise to a more aggressive approach to life. Goldman Sachs has conducted multiple training programs in the corporation with actors portraying assertive Millennials in an attempt to debate and discuss the generational differences between them. SYZYGY delineates them into those exhibiting “attentionseeking behavior” and those who appear to have an “acute sense of selfentitlement”, suggesting that perhaps not all aspects of their narcissistic attitude are entirely innocuous. ...Regardless of what the future holds for them, the Millennials are sure to approach it with all the will of their selfconviction and the spirit of self-importance. Whether this is a good thing or not, only time will tell.
Fashion Forward
Eco-Friendly Organic Fabric Green Fashion Fashion Backward?
We Are
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f a paleontologist were to date our current times this would probably be known as the Era of the Extrovert. Technology has given birth to a whole new breed of people who love spending time with their friends. While social media has given us the opportunity to share our lives with the internet, we also spend a majority of our time with people in real life. In fact, most of the time we can be found in groups of four or more. We have become a highly social generation on and off line. So what has caused this explosion of extroversion? As we all know, technology has been a catalyst for our social lives. From social media to plain old texting we can plan a get together in minutes. We can find a date for Saturday night just minutes before going out. Social Media doesn’t only affect our social lives. Our presence on social media will
dictate more and more aspects of our lives. 93% of recruiters will check facebook and twitter before hiring a potential candidate. And our huge social media presence will affect more than just our professional lives- the election that took place on November 8th, 2016 in the U.S.A was majorly impacted. 88% of millennials got their news from Facebook and not all of that information was fact checked or even true. Millennials have been painted as tech-obsessed and are said to be slowly losing touch with the real world, although that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact millennials have started making traditionally solitary activities into social events. Many millennials can be seen shopping in groups or of four or more. In recent survey 63% of millennials said they prefer running errands with friends. Millennials will use any outing as a chance to spend more time with friends. As millennials pass the torch on to the next generation it will be one that is heavily balanced on how we socialize and interact. Now more than ever are we connected and in the future who knows how much more about each other we’ll know?
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By Rachael Barnhart
By Franklin Wallace
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We Are Not Robots Accessing Our Future By Rachael Barnhart
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inety percent of us sleep with our cell phone next to our beds, according to Business Insider. We are literally too scared to be disconnected from the world for a second, even while we’re asleep, that we need to have it in arm’s’ reach. Talk about a wake up call. 20% of us have posted a video of ourselves online, says the US Chamber of Commerce. Gone are the days that we listened to our parent’s warnings of not talking to strangers online. Some of us have called strangers to our homes to pick us up in their cars. That’s called Uber. And while some of us are shy in the real world we reach for internet fame. And maybe we’re a little too addicted to this drug that is technology. On average we’re spending about 14 hours a day with some form of social media. We’re paying more attention to our phones than to the people around us. It is easy to see this when you go outside and look around. If we get lost, instead of looking at our surroundings or asking a local for assistance, we immediately pull out google to get directions. We’re missing out on the connections that in the previous generation were a normal part of someone’s day. We also run the risk of getting
trapped in an “echo chamber.” With 75% of us having a social media profile (Millennial Marketing) we run a high risk of that being the only place that we get our news. And not all of that news is accurate. These are just a few examples of our technology addiction that is running rampant. The LA Times tells us that 65% of us would rather lose our car than our phone that tells us that we are putting more value on a device than we are on our means of transportation. When our priorities are this mixed up, maybe we should start to get a little more than just concerned. So what does this mean for the future? Well, unless we start putting down the phone and shutting off netflix we could miss out on what this world has to offer. A lot of us are starting to do just this. There are retreats that offer technology getaways, where no devices are even allowed. These are allowing us to get back to the world that we first knew, the one that just involved taking in the world around us. Millennial Marketing also reports that most of us have over 200+ facebook friends. And you have to admit, there is no way that you are close friends with over 200 people. So let this be a call for us to put down our tech and take in the world.
“wage slave” “[...A] Regular worker/employee. someone with no autonomy who must work to survive. I am a wage slave at McDonalds” -Urban Dictionary
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NO NEED FOR
e dread this. The idea of becoming someone who works like a robot just to make ends meet. We dream of changing this. No longer does ownership matter, we just want access to things. Ergo the birth of things like Zipcar and Uber. We have grown out of the need for status symbols. Experience Economy- this is what millennials hold to the highest value. We want to share our stories of traveling around the world or the weird person we ran into in the elevator. Or more likely, we are willing to take jobs that aren’t high paying as we are for ones that we truly enjoyed. Most of us would rather be self employed than working for a boss that we can’t stand. This is a major shift from previous generations who were told to suck it up. We don’t mind putting things off till later if it means that we won’t look back 20 years from now and realize that we’ve wasted our youth. We also are taking advantage of the lifestyle that some of our parents are still willing to help us with. 36% of unemployed millennials live at home with their parents. With student debt still being something that we have to deal with, living at home is a way that we can save money and pay off our debts faster. We want to experience the world after being told our whole lives that we would be able to. We were taught in school that we would be able to change the world and many of us are not afraid to let something like money stand in our way.
MONEY By Rachael Barnhart
C A N O E .com
get out of here
A Ticking Time Bomb
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By Jonathan Laframboise
hen does the clock stop? How should I be spending my time? These are all questions one might ponder on while looking towards the future. The concept of time and life relate in the fact that life is a timeline of passing moments and events. Millennials see time as an always moving and constant variable that cannot be avoided or dismissed from reality. It drives us towards greatness while also holding us back from our potential. The phrase “Time is money” is a common belief within the Millennial generation, and is the core reason why our generation attempts to accomplish as many tasks in a day as possible. We hold our time sacred, and clutching onto it dearly, we express more effort towards a task that requires more of our time. One reason Millennials aspire towards quality in their work, is because we understand that our time is limited, and are more motivated to bring our creativity to the extreme. Millennials are the largest generation seen in the last 100 years. We lack modesty, and are more compassionate towards the welfare of our neighbors. Change is the motive for our
generation, and is credited for why we aim to stretch our perception and dream of a better tomorrow. We as Millennials, look at time, as a car with a limited amount of gas, flowing constant until it runs out of fuel and power. We often wonder how time can seem to move so rapidly and at in other moments have such a sluggish tempo. We notice time moves more quickly when we aren’t keeping track of it, for instance when we are in a calm, joyful, and relaxed environment. Music can be used as a portal, to keep track of past stories or events in our life. It can also be used as a way to reconnect with ourselves and any aspirations we might have lost along our voyage in life. Millennials value experience over objects, which can be associated with taking risks, or the aspiration to be living on the edge. Time can be described is a signal or compass, directing you where to go, and how fast to get there. Diving into different cultures, Millennials can use this adventurous lifestyle to motivate them towards impactful opportunities in their future –Time does indeed run out. When we as a generation are put in a situation where our time is limited and constantly flowing it impacts our decisions, because we have an endless amount of opportunities, but only so many, that can be accomplished before our time runs out. In the Millennial generation time has both
economical and mental health value, therefore we spend it like our money, wisely. Caring for others, the Millennial generation understands the importance of family and friends, while also recognizing the need for community. The perception of Death, creates a reality that time can impact our future decisions. This causes us to make decisions more quickly based on the feeling that we do not having enough time. Instead of planning out our future, we tend to focus more on our death. We as a generation, tend to either want to die earlier or live forever, giving less focus towards the enjoyment of the life we were given, and more focus towards what can we accomplish with the time we are given.
By Franklin Wallace
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ur magazine centers around the idea of a duality of being within the Millennial Generation. This generation has a divisive split right down the middle on almost every important issue of the day. We live in a constant state of ambiguity and uncertainty that influences our every decision. There are many factors that have brought about our current circumstances. So what gave birth to this strange generation? Well the best way for me to start explaining things is by taking a page out of The Lion King, a movie that most millennials will be familiar with. (because who’s favorite disney movie isn’t The Lion King?) Mufasa tells Simba that everything the light touches will be Simba’s one day. When we were children, we were told that one day we could grow up to be anything we wanted, go anywhere we imagined,
and go on endless new and exciting adventures. Then we grew up. Instead of getting everything the light touched, it seems so far, we have gotten the scary elephant graveyard. We are children of a very uneasy global-political climate. In America, millennials experienced the first true showing of homeland terror, since Pearl Harbor, on September 11th 2001, since then we have also seen the worst financial crisis of the last few decades, dubbed “The Great Recession”. These two events are probably responsible for shaping much of modern America. But we were mostly children during these events, so many of us still grew up with our heads full of dreams for the future. We grew up with the same naive hopes of any generation, that nothing could go wrong. That’s where it starts, as children we were told by baby boomers, that had lives better
than their parents, that someday we would have better too. Most of us graduate high school feeling that college is just the next logical step. And a lot of us go off to our further schooling just to find out that it is an enormous and sometimes insurmountable expense. It costs about the price of a house to get a Bachelor’s Degree, that just barely allows you to even enter the job market. And today a four year degree no longer guarantees a job in your field as many positions require Graduate Degrees and even sometimes Doctorates. Then once you finally enter the real world there is still no guarantee that you are going to be able to land your dream job. Schooling isn’t the only thing that has gotten more expensive over the past few decades. Millennials as a whole are putting off major life milestones simply because of their financial state. While you may have heard that less millennials are getting married than past generations, only about half of us would say we never want to start a traditional family. Many millennials hope to settle down as soon as possible, while others no longer believe in the institution of marriage at all. And countless millennials put off saying “I do” in order to have time to experience more of the world while they are young. We want to be able to gain
every experience possible. We want to travel. We want to see the world. We want to go to the places that we saw on the T.V. or in the movies when we were younger. We want to do things in our youth that past generations had reserved for their retirement, because we are not sure if we will be able to retire. So we develop ways of getting there now. We start utilizing the system of a shareconomy- airbnb, zipcar, uber, these allow us a way to get around while saving money. Our generation calls for new innovations in the service industry in order to satiate our need for experience. We begin to place a greater value on experiences rather than material goods. It’s very difficult to find happiness in an “Experience Economy” if you’re living paycheck to paycheck and working two jobs just to make ends meet. It has forced us to think about the time we have on this planet and consider for a moment what we value the most. That sense of urgency and prioritization has led to a very high amount of anxiety and stress in our generation. As someone who was basically raised by hippies of the 70’s, our parents don’t always understand what we are going through with our fear of the future. We want to make the world a better place, but many of us experience an inner conflict with this ideal when trying to find the time and money to help out. We care about the envi-