Why does being in your early 20s feel so much like only having 5 years of your life left in which you need to achieve as much as possible? why do I feel like I have an approaching deadline for success?
It’s because we’ve had nearly 30+ years of the “young genius” narrative where those people gave actually gone on to shape the world we know today. Instead of treating these people as truely outliers, they’ve become expectation. People are always looking for “the next Gates, the next Zuckerberg, the next person” who’s going to make an insane amount of money discovering an unregulated resource and shaping it to their whim and shaping the culture around that thing.
Then on top of it we’ve had numerous generations who were able to have everything on their adult checklist: House, spouse, kids, job security, career, car by 25.
However, due to entering an unstable economy, uncertain job market, but with technological advancements that afford more flexibility, and creativity for their lives compared to their parents, Millenials are going through another growing phase right after their college years. As many can’t afford the adult check-list that their grandparents or parents did at their age. Millenials are taking their time because they literally cannot afford to buy a car, a house, find a spouse, have kids, while struggling to pay off massive debt while working for companies who either have no jobs or little loyalty to keep them for 30+ years like they kept their parents, when they can find someone “younger, dumber, and cheaper to replace you” (<- my baby boomer boss said this proudly to me).
However instead of sympathizing with the generations they helped cripple, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who are still in power, sneer at Millenials and Gen Z for being vapid, selfish, lazy, frivolous, bucking the system, etc., because they still hold us to these old expectation. These “‘back when I was your age I had x,y, and z/I got want have because I worked hard’” statements that show a failure to understand that most *are* working hard with a really shitty situation. While choosing to ignore that they helped cripple us, Baby Boomers/Gen Xers, havent realized that times have changed, and therefore cultural expectations should as well.
However there is light at the end of the tunnel: As expectations have failed to get with the times, you can exploit this. Just get through your 20s, and once you’re in your 30s, Boomers and GenXers will naturally assume you have your shit together and will leave you alone. Seriously, the moment I turned 30 it was like a huge pressure to preform was off of me. Suddenly the decisions I made were considered “bold” and “living my best life” when in my 20s, those same decisions would have been met with derision from the 40+ crowd.
I absolutely hated my 20s due to this mentally that I needed to accomplish something significant/hit all these arbitrary milestones that don’t make sense to me to stress over because they were frankly unattainable to me. Now in my 30s, it’s a lot easier to breathe.
So chin up, take your selfies, make your shit posts, stay out late, make your mistakes, take years to find your dream job,do those “extraneous” hobbies, classes, whatever makes you happy.
You have so much time.
oh my god thank you so much?? this gave me much needed peace of mind right now. be my mentor lol
