Humble Pie

I've noticed a bit of a trend among us young folk: the lot of us are self-aggrandizing fools. I stumbled on an old co-worker's social networking page, which included a list of accomplishments, concluding with "yeah, I'm kind of a big deal." As I recall from working alongside this person for a fairly good amount of time, he was more of a show pony than a work horse, who had a knack for hitching his star to hard-working people and brown-nosing the more influential members of the group.

Being that this is around the time when local campaign offices are opening and we're increasingly becoming a part of the scene and volunteering, it's important that young people remember that we're NOT the greatest thing since sliced bread. Young people in campaign offices have been somewhat of novelties in years past, and it's fun to get all the attention from people telling us what good things we're doing, but the novelty wears off. And when the praise starts to dissipate, remember why you're putting in the long hours-- at the end of the day, it's about your community, and the more you help your community, the better your resume looks.

You're not "kind of a big deal."

Grassroots campaigns are not glamourous.