Youthful Discretion Is Just a Big Waste of Time

Jordana Willner

Originally published San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, August 24, 1999

I'M THINKING of knocking over a convenience store. Then I might commit a little arson, tamper with the mail, forge some signatures and follow it all up by yelling ``Fire!'' in a crowded theater. It doesn't matter. I'm only in my 20s. Before this summer, I thought committing such illegal acts might have negative bearing on potential for future success. But in the 10 days since my 26th birthday, my self-image and career strategies have undergone a renaissance.

It turns out that, if I start now, I can put myself on a 25-year plan that allows me to commit federal crimes today and still be eligible for election to the presidency in the year 2024. Thanks to current interpretations of actions allegedly committed by Texas Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush when he was about my age, nothing I do in the next few years matters at all.

How embarrassing. Until now, I have taken my life very seriously. I excelled in high school, made an academic killing in college, entered the professional world and have diligently worked my way into positions of increased responsibility and skill. What ego. What nerve. What a waste of time.

How preposterous to think anything I do in my 20s could register as an important accomplishment, contribution or, most comically, as an indicator of the citizen and professional I might become. What a shame I wasted all these years saying no to drugs when I could have enjoyed myself and never paid the consequences -- because any of my erroneous actions could have been explained away with two words: youthful indiscretion.

Youthful indiscretion. My entire life up to this moment can be described as a youthful indiscretion. This article, in fact, can easily be explained away as the mistake of an immature, unthinking young woman -- an argument that may come in handy if I ever find myself vying for a job with the Republican Party. But why bother to write it all? Why waste my time scribbling, when nothing I say could have any real importance? And if nothing I do right now matters anyway, why not follow the path of least resistance and just have a good time until I'm old enough? Come to think of it, my employers would be wise to stop wasting my salary on a mere irrelevant youth and replace me with an older, more qualified person.

But just how old is a relevant person? If the actions of a 24-year-old are easily dismissed, at what point does a person become accountable? Age 27? Thirty? Thirty-five? When will I actually be answerable for my actions? When am I on the clock? I had mistakenly thought that when I began earning a living, paying taxes, supporting local businesses, providing a model for my younger sister and making my parents proud, my actions were those of a responsible adult. Now that I've learned those years were nothing but throwaway time, I think it is legitimate to wonder just when I will become relevant.

(But maybe I have no hope of relevance. If you consider that I was born when my parents were 28, you might say my entire life is the result of their youthful indiscretion.)

It is disconcerting, to say the least, to discover this early in the 2000 Republican presidential primary campaign how irrelevant I am in the minds of many Americans.

And yet, in one particular arena, I know I still matter. My vote, of which I have been the proud owner since my 18th birthday, still counts as much as that of every 50-something American in the land.

You can bet I will cast it for a candidate who believes that 26 is old enough to make an informed decision and stand by it.

--Jordana Willner wrote a monthly "Next Generation" column for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999, 2000, and 2001