It's written in the bible, and across our television screens during the five o'clock news. Is it the end of the world or the peak of the world's own ignorance? Everyday things seem to get a little worse. Just pick a subject. World peace... still non-existent. Education.. under and overestimated. Nothing seems to be enough. Our patents have accomplished what they came to do. Our grandparents no doubt have completed their journey and are living the last of their days out knowing that their decisions have been made. What about us? The twenty something flock who wander, some blindly trying to seek truth in and between the lies we get told everyday. If we buy "this" thing we don't need then maybe we can touch a better life. If we vote for "that" man then maybe we can taste it. Most of us just seem to struggle though life's insignificant and triumphant hurtles with such a clumsy prowl that we find ourselves on the other side of "accomplishment" wondering how in the hell we got there unscathed. Are we living in a world with numbered days? It sure feels like it. So why should we be anything but procrastinators living for today as if tomorrow will never come. We try hard to find a balance and still remain set inside of a state of limbo. We've been dubbed "generation X" and our predecessors say that we are among the lost. Neither here nor there, but solidly placed in something I like to call "The Mid-Twenties Crisis". The second puberty if you will.

Picture a mid-life crisis. A man in his mid-fifties trying to accept his fate, to sanction within his life decisions and lay in the assumed comfort of the actions that came thereafter until his body and mind succumb to the cycle of life. It's inevitable. And unarguable. And so this man, goes and buys a hot new car, regardless of it's price tag. He may leave his wife physically or mentally and delight in the fantasy of a younger woman. He might start working out obsessively even though the aches and pains keep him up at night to no end. It's all so that he can recall at some length the feeling of a more innocent time, his younger days which are frighteningly behind him.

At twenty three years old, I have to admit. I can relate. I know I have at least sixty more years, with good health ahead of me. It's not time that I'm afraid of. It's life. It's the reality of the war in Iraq and it's inevitable consequences. It's global warming, ice caps melting, polar bears drowning. It's the demise of the music industry and the rise of lip-syncing. It's the break down in the educational system that makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry until I can pretend that I'm actually ignorant to life's inevitable direction. Shut my eyes tight and pretend I'm a child again when my mother was my only law keeper and there was no such thing as finding truth. My own more innocent time. But instead my generation decides to indulge. To suck up what we can instead of preserving it for a time when we'll need it the most. We're told to save for our future and purge on expensive un-necessities in the same breath. Our vulnerability is exploited as marketing strategies. It's all a question of price and product.

Every time I think about my future I'm bombarded with questions of doubt. Do we even HAVE a future? We are in crisis, but only we can save ourselves. A never ending struggle to figure ourselves out. In the middle of the best years of our lives we are all faced with the worse nightmare of any generation. So we're told, indirectly, to prepare for the worst.

Learn more about this author, Ashley Bolden.
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