Work To Do

Is this the New Year or just another night?
Is this the new fear or just another fright?
Is this the new tear or just another desperation?

Well. Here we are. December 31st.

I'm waking up at the start of the end of the world,
But its feeling just like every other morning before,
Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it's gone.

Tomorrow, we start a new year. A new year that will include a new President, thousands of people looking for new jobs, gas prices about half of what they were a year ago, and retirement accounts horrendously shriveled.

My usual optimism still fails me.

It's not that I think we can't pull it off. We're a resilient country and we've been known to recover from some pretty crazy things. Yet there's this part of me that realizes that this is the first real test that my generation has ever seen. We're the ones who will see the impact in full -- and I'm not totally confident that we can handle it.

The cars are moving like a half a mile an hour and I,
Started staring at the passengers waving goodbye,
Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time?

I wonder about that. We've got a lot going for us. But we have a lot working against us too -- so many trends in this country that are so terribly self-created that it's a shock we're still around sometimes. Obesity, addictions, the divorce rate ...

Maybe we can pull it off.

Well I found a list of flaws
That I saw in myself and other people
And I threw it away because,
Bon voyage.

Now's our chance, kids. Now we get to prove what we're made of.

There's nothing here worth saving,
Is no one here at all?
Is there any net left that could break our fall?

This is our world, the world we've been building for ourselves since we first picked up Legos twenty-plus years ago. The world our parents have been giving to us bit by bit. The world they've been shaping with us in mind, whether or not that was a good idea.

They wanted the best for us -- and we have it. Everything we could want, or at least everything we need to get everything we want. We are spoiled children, and in a lot of cases it is these conveniences that have been causing problems.

But we are also more globally aware than any generation has ever been. I'm not talking about climate change -- I'm talking about people. We are the only generation to be raised on pictures of starving children in Africa right alongside pictures of misbehaving celebrities. We hear about more people and more places in one day than our grandparents and great-grandparents heard about in a month or a year.

It'll be a day like this one
When the sky falls down and the hungry and poor and deserted are found
Are you discontented? Have you been pushing hard?
Have you been throwing down this broken house of cards?

We have a lot of work to do.

It'll have to start on the individual level, though. Those self-created problems? They need to go first. The plank in your own eye first, remember? Then we can move on to the big things.

Wars.

Starvation.

Energy crises.

We have a lot of work to do.

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry

I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye.