What a day, right? I’m on my way to vote and, frankly, I look a little crazy because I’m so excited that I hardly slept a wink. And it isn’t difficult to see why. So much of the Gen Y discussion we’ve had over the last year or two has been about our entitlement, our coddled youth, our lack of accountability, perspective, and work ethic. Our generation, I’ve been told so many times, hasn’t really been through anything. (Sure, there was 9/11, but could that one day compare to  prolonged coming-of-age crises like Vietnam or the Great Depression?)

Well, I think it’s about time we put that argument to rest. Maybe two wars and $4-a-gallon gas this summer weren’t enough to get us the generational street cred, but surely the last few months have finally elevated us to that highest echelon of suffering. As Thomas Friedman put it in his column on Monday, “Never has one generation [i.e., them] spent so much of its children’s [i.e., us] wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years.” Thanks, Mom and Dad.

And for the record, it’s only just beginning. Whatever entitlement we have exhibited will, I think, be quickly quashed by the rapidly approaching obligations of our future. Not only will it cost far more (and be much more necessary, given the competitive landscape) to put our kids through college and beyond, we will also be caring for parents who are living longer and saving less, often because of the circumstances they’ve faced, like layoffs, rising healthcare costs, and of course, the high price of raising us.

All that to say, please, for the love of goodness, go vote. Whatever the immediate stakes for our country, the long-term significance of this day for us simply can’t be overstated. When sociologists look back at the formative moments of our lifetime, will 2008 be the year whose financial crisis began all our troubles, or the one whose election set the tone for our country’s recovery? Every election, there’s big talk of the youth vote, and just about every election, it amounts to a big pile of hype. (Howard Dean, anyone?) So this year, think of it as a life vote. Whatever your views, whomever you support, you actually do have a chance to shape the rest of our collective life today. Take it. Or don’t — and your friends (and I!) will hold you personally responsible for every calamity that befalls us forever more.

If you haven’t checked out Damon Darlin’s column from this weekend (or your parents haven’t sent it to you already!), it might be a good idea to give “Your Money: More Advice Graduates Don’t Want to Hear” a look. Lots of you’ve written me to say you want to hear more about how to save and spend, so there’ll be much more to come about it on The Gig. But it seems from what Darlin says that, as interested as we are in theory, many of us don’t necessarily want to make the sacrifices to put good saving advice into practice — especially the advice he gave in a much e-mailed column around graduation time last year.

All in all, the recommendations were pretty straightforward: “It was mostly the simple things my mother had drummed into me,” he writes. “It was advice like diverting 10 percent of your income to savings before anything else and ignoring raises and putting them into savings, too. Learn to cook, I said, and never borrow money to pay for a depreciating asset. I also suggested cutting out the latte habit, which was my symbol for those little things in life that when turned into a habit, add up to money that could have been spent on something worthwhile and memorable.”

Apparently, the latte is sacred to some of us. And others said that putting aside 10% — which Darlin estimates works out to $52 a week for someone making $40,000 a year — is a stretch, particularly for those living in cities like New York. (A publicist in Atlanta once told me that for what I paid to live in a sixth-floor walk-up in Manhattan’s West Village, I “could have Ludacris’s house” down there.)

But the benefits are many. “Bank $250 a month for 40 years in a I.R.A. or a 401(k) and you will receive about $500,000, assuming a 6 percent return,” Darlin writes. “Start at age 45 and you would have to put in $1,078 a month to generate the same amount by age 65.”

Seems like a no-brainer. And while the pressures of big-city rent, hanging out, and all the other things we sometimes feel we’d die without are also numerous, I’d hazard a guess that money in the bank will mean more to our 65-year-old selves than designer shoes, ginormous TVs and other indulgences mean to us now. (Really, how many times have I heard a female friend here say she forsook saving, food, or even rent for a pair of shoes she just had to have? You laugh, but it happens here more than anyone would like to admit. I’m ashamed for all of us.)

Bottom line: Let’s keep dutifully saving — with automatic deductions, of course, so we can’t cheat as easily — if at all possible. Doable, or not so much?