The World’s Greatest Generation or the Last?
There comes a moment in every generation when it must ask itself, what mark is it going to make on history¹?
We live at a unique moment in time — one that presents us with great possibilities but also great challenges, one that offers us great opportunities but that come with great responsibilities.
Challenges
We are the first generation that can end extreme poverty and the last that can address climate change¹.
These challenges may seem so monumental to be insurmountable. But if history has shown us anything, it is that when united there is nothing that we cannot accomplish².
When President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that a person would set foot on the moon before the end of that decade, he was right². When Mahatma Gandhi called for independence from the mighty British Empire, which ruled over a third of the world, he was right³. When Winston Churchill called for victory over the marauding Axis Forces on the beaches, on the landing grounds, and in the streets, he was right⁴.
When each of these generations were called upon, the challenges they faced seemed impossible until their resolution became inevitable. That is why I believe there is no dissonance between high ideals and practical possibilities, because, as Disraeli noted, “Nothing can resist the will of the people⁵.”
What makes the threats we face today — poverty, climate change, nuclear weapons and terrorism, genocide and disease¹ — so different from the challenges of history, is that these are global issues that require global and local solutions and individual actions.
Before us are a range of possible futures. It is for our generation to decide what we want that future to be.
Opportunities
Just as these challenges seem greater than ever, we hold in our hands the knowledge, resources and technology to address them. Until now, what we have lacked is the will to make it happen.
It now comes to our generation — the most connected, materially prosperous and globally conscious — to take on the fight for what we know is right.
Because as Robert Kennedy said in a speech to a group of South African students in 1966, the world “demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease⁶.”
People may question whether it is possible, you may have to sacrifice some of the comforts to which you have grown accustomed, and you may even attract the censure of some of your friends and colleagues. But I believe there can be nothing more meaningful in its endeavour, more challenging in its pursuit, and more compelling in its purpose, than shaping a better future for humanity.
Because what could be more worthwhile than giving a child the opportunity of an education, saving endangered species from the ravages of deforestation, protecting our planet from the irreversible effects of climate change, providing a displaced family with a home, offering an elderly person the dignity of a friend, or organising your local community to clean up their streets?
What Can I Do?
Now you may be asking yourself; what can I, a single person, do to help build this future?
We each have a role to play.
As Robert Kennedy went on to say, “Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events. And then the total of all of these acts will be written in the history of this generation.
“It is from numerous, diverse acts of courage and belief such as these that human history is thus shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression⁶.”
There are currently people protesting on the streets in the fight for equal rights, volunteers using their skills to give opportunities to those less fortunate, and many donating money to support those organisations fighting for the causes they care about.
Each of us wields the power to create a ripple and together we can create that current. You must search within yourself to determine the part you will play in this endeavour. Look for the cause that drives you, the skill that defines you and the purpose that fulfils you.
We Cannot Wait
But we cannot wait to act. For I believe in what Martin Luther King called “the fierce urgency of now⁷”. As each day passes, the challenges the world faces become harder to address and their impacts more difficult to resolve. Because climate change cannot wait, people living in poverty cannot wait, and children going uneducated cannot wait for us to decide to act.
Though we may wish to believe in the myth of perpetual progress, time is, in fact, neutral⁷. It is what we do with the time we have that will determine the mark we make. That is why, if we do not act to help address these problems now, we will be destined to live with the consequences and to condemn future generations to a fate they had no say in creating and that they would not have chosen.
President John F. Kennedy was speaking to the people of the world at the height of the Cuban missile crisis when he said they could choose to be the world’s greatest generation or the last².
Our generation lives at just as critical a time.
We hold in our hands the tools to end all forms of human suffering and all forms of human life².
There are few moments in history where the fate of the future has been so bound by the decisions of the present. This is the challenge that has been bestowed upon our generation.
It may not have been our choice, but I would not choose to have been born at any other time or in any other place. For this is not a burden for us to bear, but an opportunity we should relish. Because we have been given the privilege to play our part in determining the destiny of our common community — that of humanity.
Those people of current and future generations, to whom we have the greatest responsibility, will judge us not by our words or our tweets, but by our deeds.
That is why I ask you: What mark will you make on history?
This is the moment for each of us to determine how the history of our generation will be written.
We give you the power to change the world.
We Make Change enables anyone, anywhere to use their skills to make the change they want to see. We connect people who care about the same causes to form communities that collaborate online to develop projects with NGOs that make change happen. Become a ChangeMaker and use your skills to make the change you want to see.
Inspired by
¹ Barack Obama
² John F Kennedy
³ Mahatma Gandhi
⁴ Winston Churchill
⁵ Benjamin Disraeli
⁶ Robert Kennedy
⁷ Martin Luther King
