I got some perspective on what I like to call “our collective adolescence” through a letter my daughter wrote a judge, asking for leniency toward her first traffic ticket. It is funny, youthful and full of good intentions but obvious of her emerging adulthood.

Her letter served to remind me of our own pioneering experience;  that all of us are 16 again. We’re driving a stick for the first time. Jerking forward and lurching back, bucking then stalling; moving haltingly toward a new model of being. And like learning a stick, there’s a lot to think about simultaneously. As a society, were being called upon to reframe our use of energy, water, food, transportation and ways of thinking. It’s daunting and we’re prone to set backs, like stalling out or burning the clutch.

As we cultivate a way to navigate the world, have tolerance for our 16 year old state of being.   Like my daughter's first letter to a judge, our innocence is poignant. We are the emerging better half of lives soon to be judged reckless by future generations. We’re the 16 year olds working our first jobs, but showing up in a dirty uniform.  We mean well, but we don’t yet have it all together.

And like my teenage daughter, the road of maturation serves a great purpose in actually getting us to where we need to be. If we were to write a letter to the judge, it would be just as youthful and full of good intentions, but obvious of our emerging new-era adulthood.