Participation.

Our grandparents were lying about their ages to fight for our country at 17. Our parents were self-sufficient at 18.

Forgive me if I have no sympathy when you tell me that you're just not ready to grow up yet.

Lives change and so do people; this doesn't mean we should stall the here and now. Your strengths now are the definition of a generation, a largely untapped well of capability. It doesn't mean you should sit back and wait for the rest of your life; it means you should search for it. Doing what you love now means understanding what you'll love tomorrow. Moving, losing, failing, falling. Do better. Try again. I've never known a path to be perfectly straight.

We're a product of the trophies we received just for showing up. Why cross the street on my own when someone's dying to hold my hand?

Where patriotism is a dying ideal and God is a dictionary definition, we look our five-year-old selves in the face and ask them who will be the leaders of their tomorrow. Everyone has a crisis and a cause worth their sole focus. Meaning has tunnel vision and cross hairs set on one. We're a network of tunnels and the maze is growing unnavigable. Who will take their eye off the lens? Who will see a world instead a being?

It's perfectly imperfect and it's ours to pioneer. We can each blaze a trail and burn down everything beautiful, or we can get our hands dirty and build a legacy. Nothing is insignificant. No one is insignificant. I don't believe that all we can do is try. I believe that all we can do is never stop trying.

Growing up doesn't mean growing old.