American Millennials v2.0

Long, long ago in a coffee shop far, far away I launched a blog where I could exercise my thoughts on the most important issues of the day, which I setup at AmericanMillennials.com. I never advertised it, and while I know that some people did stumble upon it because they’d comment on the my various posts, it was always more of a place where I could take the constant tornado of thoughts going on in my head and put them into written form so I’d no longer have to juggle those thoughts day in and day out. I quickly discovered that by putting those thoughts into written form, my brain seemed to be able to be able to relax and focus on other things. In other words, my early blogging wasn’t intended to make a difference in the world. I wasn’t trying to influence or push any ideas on anyone. It was – simply put – a coping mechanism I used to help me quiet my mind.

However, with time, I grew frustrated that our society wasn’t evolving quickly enough, nor adequately addressing the serious problems of the day. Consequently, I ran for political office a couple times, and in the course of doing so recycled many of the ideas I had previously blogged about into a campaign platform. Some of my ideas were well recieved, while others were treated as laughable by various people in our community I looked up to. Given that a number of those ideas were – from my perspective – simply common sense ideas that hadn’t yet been adopted by our society, I didn’t understand why my fellow candidates weren’t stealing those ideas and incorporating them into their own political platforms. From my perspective, we were all putting ourselves forth as potential public servants, and regardless of who might ultimately win the election, I had this optimistic hope that whomever the winner was, they would head to our state’s capital with all of the best ideas that had emerged as our campaign cycles unfolded, and fight for all of those ideas. In retrospect, I now understand a number of reasons why it didn’t happen, and almost have to laugh at my early idealism and naïvity, but also appreciate and love my younger self for being so hopeful and having such an optimistic expectation.

Fortunately, with time, I started to take note that the ideas I had pushed so heavily for years earlier were being adopted and advocated for – both within the halls of our state legislature, and also in other political jurisdictions around the country. Truthfully, I don’t know whether my blogging and political campaigns made any difference whatsoever. My guess is probably not. However, that’s one of the beautiful things about being an advocate for common-sense ideas – in the end, common-sense often wins the day, so regardless of whether you personally succeed in pushing a common-sense idea, chances are that someday, somewhere, someone eventually will.

At this specific point in my life, I’m not interested in running for political office. But having seen a number of the ideas I advocated for a decade ago come to pass, and acknowledging the reality that a good number of my common-sense ideas have not yet come to pass, I’ve decided to re-boot the American Millennials site and see what I can do to inspire some positive change – both in my home state, but also across the counry and potentially across the face of globe.

However, unlike the earlier version of the site, which was largely a space for me to clear my mind, this time around I intend to evolve the site into an online agora for good ideas and a place where those who wish to make a positive difference in the world can find resources and make connections that might help them along their way.

And so, with all that said, I hereby take the first step by publishing this first post of the new and improved AmericanMillennials.org website!