A couple of days ago, when I said we live a different lifestyle than our parents, I wasn't just talking about technology. Technology can be an enabler, a facilitator...but tech tools are simply the things we demand to deal with a more fundamental change in how we relate to the world around us.

Life was more linear. We believed there were defined pathways through career and life that generally worked for most people.

Our grandparents pulled themselves out of the Great Depression and defeated Fascism. Then, they created a world order to ensure it would never happen again. Sometimes, we look back and cannot understand the depth of passion with which many clung to social beliefs (e.g. racism) and the sense of order and tradition, but perhaps it was because it was life or death for them. Life was hard. They were accustomed to sacrifice for the sake of their children.

Our parents grew up in that system and learned to work it. Whether workaholics or activists, they assumed an order and a system and believed if they worked hard enough and played by the rules, they would be happy. So they made life hard.

We watched our parents and realized it didn't always work. We became smart and cynical because we could see the truth but not the answer. We thought it unfair that life was hard.

But we need to get past all that. Life is not fair...it is, what it is. The current generation comes into the workforce and civic life unencumbered by the belief systems we Gen Xers lost faith in. Generation Y is free to attack the world from a fresh perspective. But so are we all. We don't need to find a better set of rules or to "correct" the system...we just need to learn to live with things as they are, not as we believe they should be.

I'm not saying we should tolerate injustice or give up. But we should work to change the right things. We believed in finding single solutions, getting on the right track, making the right choices...but life is not about that anymore. Examples:

Career - Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist blog infuriates many people who are looking for right answers. I like it because she challenges assumptions and makes me question conventional wisdom. Controversial advice illustrates how understanding what is really going on can help a smart person navigate through an unfair world. Belief in applying general principles like "you need to pay your dues" will only make you cynical when you see that it doesn't apply to some people.

Parenting - Did you really believe those Baby Einstein videos would make your kid smarter? Do you think parenting is a competitive sport? I think obsessive compulsive parenting disorder is about to expire as parents realize no amount of worrying is making their kids any safer. But we are inundated with advertising messages and news articles designed to make us feel bad if we don't do the right things. Guess what? You can do everything "right" and not be happy. Sometimes, you need to pick up that crying baby. Sometimes you let him cry. Whatever works.

Balance - Work/Life balance used to mean scheduling quality time so you didn't feel as guilty about abandoning your kids. Today, people are increasingly talking about blending their lives. Blending means not putting things in separate compartments...it doesn't mean that you use gadgets like Blackberrys to allow work to permeate all of your life though--it means rather than relying on a rule-based idea of "setting boundaries," you become comfortable with navigating the situation at hand...life does not fit into little boxes; instead of being frustrated by that, we need to learn to live free from a fixed set of rules.

So what does any of that have to do with a "mash-up?" The term mash-up comes from combining music and vocals from different sources. If you are from my generation and you heard a sort of pop mash-up type song you probably had a reaction like "they can't do that--it's like plagiarism to mix in some other song with their stupid rap." Mash-up has also come to describe web technologies where a developer uses a platform like the Google maps API to create a new application that combines some other data with the core google map data. The Google Maps Mania blog has hundreds of such applications. By the time these map mash-ups started appearing, nobody in their right mind was arguing that developers should be creating things from scratch anymore.

I think we are reaching that point in life. We are piecing together things that work for us and adapting as we go along. I wanted to be a locavore and I joined a CSA Farm, but I'm not going to stress it that the kids are eating chicken nuggets. I'm doing this blog, the local WestwoodBlog.org and starting up a cable TV station in town. I run when I can and plan to do another marathon this fall. No more 3-hour Saturday bike rides, but I commute (once it gets warmer!) 13 miles to Boston on a fixie (1250 miles last year). After years of no religion, we joined a church. My wife stays home for now and raises 3 kids under 4.

Are we busy? Of course. But I would characterize it as more of a "bursty" style of life than busy. I don't have a schedule for when I can write this blog...I don't have a schedule for anything...you just do what you can, when you can. That's the "plan."

Addendum: After I wrote this, I thought that last paragraph might give the impression that I'm off doing a gazillion things while my wife sits at home doing the heavy lifting with the kids. Yes, she has her hands full, but I'm a lot more available to help than in the days when I worked late every night and disappeared into my computer room. I've not blended things as well as Pam Slim describes over at EscapeFromCubicleNation, but the point is, especially for GenX, we are really trying to blend it all together and make things work.