In all likelihood I will watch the Oregon State University men's basketball team make history on Saturday. Unfortunately, it will not be the good kind of history. They will go down in history as the only Pac-10 team to lose every conference game in a season. They have currently lost 19 straight with an overall record of 6-23. I have not seen them win a home game. The games they won were either during marching band season and I didn't have to be there or they happened over Christmas Break.
It seems like going into every game I know that they are going to lose, but I cannot help feeling depressed every time it actually happens. I still get sad no matter how bad I know they are. I show up and I give my all to cheering them on. I yell at the refs and scream at the opposing team's coach like my life depends on it. When something goes good, I lose my voice yelling so hard. I bark at the opposing team's fans to sit down when they start pouring it on. Maybe the reason it hurts so much is that I invest too much emotion in each game. I just cannot help it; it is my team and I hate to see them triumphed over by anyone. Especially because of being in band, it is my duty to protect the honor of my school.
That is real devotion though. I could cheer for some other team because there is no point in cheering for mine. I could just not give any emotion to the game at all. There are many things I could do because the team is really bad. But what kind of fan would I be? I do not just love my team when things are going great; I devote my energy to them even when things have gone terribly bad. That is devotion: to stick by something or someone no matter how bad the circumstances become. To stay by their side in the roughest times.
What I am trying to say here is bigger than just my love for OSU though. I think that my devotion to cheering for Oregon State in every sport, through thick and thin, is sort of a good picture or example that can be applied to many other things. My generation has been referred to by some as the silent generation. I would add to that lazy. Don't get me wrong, this is my generation too, but I definitely see us as a silent, lazy generation.
My generation is no longer committed to anything. We have an attitude of "if it doesn't make me feel good, I don't want to do it." If life is hard, give up. I saw a commercial the other day, I believe it was a car commercial, that illustrates my point. Basically the narrator was saying that today if you do not like your house, get a new one. If you do not like something about your body, get a new one. If you do not like your wife, well, get a new one. He then goes on to ask, "What ever happened to commitment?" I guess that is what I wonder.
To prove my point about us being lazy, I will give yet another example from the press. I read an article about two weeks ago in the Daily Barometer, OSU's student newspaper. The article was about the type of "relationship" known as "friends with benefits." Basically the article talked about why these relationships are popular nationwide with high school and college age students. The reason is that it is easy: you get to have sex and whatever without having to commit to any kind of relationship. Why work at a relationship (because it definitely does take work) when you can just go "hook up" anytime you want without a relationship?
The sex professor here at OSU (who I already had almost no respect for) was almost praising these relationships in the article. It kind of made me sick. My generation likes to cheat on tests, find the easiest way to get rich, go out and have sex with all kinds of people without any commitment, and do all sorts of other things. Everyone knows that in America today we have the fattest population ever. We are so lazy.
Maybe people already know why we are called the silent generation, but I will go over it real quick anyway. Part of the reason is exactly what I am doing right here. Besides being lazy, my generation does not voice their opinions anywhere except in their blogs. When people in my generation get mad about some societal ill, they go and blog about it to release their anger. They do not go out and get anything done, they just blog about it and forget. Everything is OK after that because they made themselves feel good by writing that blog.
This election is somewhat unusual because there is a higher percentage of young voters turning out. But the fact of the matter is that most of those are 4-year college and university students who are more or less being pushed to get out and vote by their peers and professors. Not that that in itself is bad; as a political science major I would suggest doing it myself. But what I guess I am getting at is most people my age are not at a university. Most of the people in my age group are still not involved. Even the Darfur awareness among college students is not the biggest thing. It is almost more the trendy thing to help with than anything else. If it makes me look or feel better, than I will do it. That is my generation.
I guess I just wonder what this generation will look like in ten or twenty years. We are so lazy that we are not willing to work at anything. We do not work to make the country better. We do not work to make our states or cities better. We do nothing to help those who are really in need on the streets. We do nothing to keep our relationships strong. Are we just going to sit by when the government makes bad decisions in the future? Are we going to let our marriages fall apart at the first sign of trouble because it is easier to let it fall apart? Where is there room for devotion in the midst of our laziness and silence?
As for me, I want to have the same devotion, the same emotion invested in everything else in my life that I do in cheering on my team. I want to passionately pursue the goals and interests, and develop the talents that God has given me. I want to be passionately devoted to one woman for the rest of my life, no compromise. I want to be utterly devoted to my God. I want to do all of this no matter how hard it gets. That is true devotion. Of course there will be very hard times, but true character shines through the darkest circumstances.
