I expect that many young adults today, like me, often lie awake at night worrying about their place in the world. It seems the older we get, the more information we soak in, endlessly shaping our perception of reality and fueling our desire to be recognized and appreciated. Trying to interpret the grand scale of life in the modern human world, in my opinion, is what often makes us feel irrelevant, insignificant and unworthy of existence. Here's some food for thought:
Growing up, Generation Y absorbed an immense amount of information as a result of the Internet. You’d think that with this revolutionary tool, people would band together and achieve extraordinary things. In many so ways we have. There are endless opportunities for betterment that come with the emergence of the Internet of Things. Yet in everyday society, social pressures continue to turn us against one another. With a rapidly increasing human population, the fight for significance is higher than ever.
Image crafted social media content paints false reflections of our peers, causing confusion, doubt, anxiety, and inadvertently makes people question their own worth in comparison to others. In today’s neo-liberal societies, growing up isn’t easy, and young adults are continuously falling into the trap of dissatisfaction and over-expectation.
One of the best interpretations of this I’ve come across is Tim Urban’s ‘Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy’. He shares his unique acronym for the generation born between the late 1970's and mid-1990's: GYPSY (Gen Y Protagonist & Special Yuppies). Urban applies a simple formula to this generation, which he believes is the main reason why "GYPSY's" feel unsatisfied with life: “Happiness = Reality – Expectations”. Generation Y is brought up to have high expectations of adult life, and more often than not, these high expectations are not fulfilled, resulting in dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Generation Y expect to rise above their peers and lead extraordinary lives, believing they are profoundly unique, after being told time and time again to "follow your dreams because you’re special." The problem is, in a world of over 7 billion people, the odds are very much against us all to reach high levels of success. Yet we are endlessly encouraged to seek greener pastures. I am a prime example of a young adult who cannot accept that the grass is not always greener. No parent wants to accept the fact that their child could possibly end up single, living at home, working as a janitor, and this fear becomes ingrained in all of us.
Child Trends reports that young adults who are working are less likely than their unemployed peers to experience depression. I don’t think the problem is that young adults don’t want to work (with exceptions of course), but more that getting a job isn’t as easy as it once was. What’s more, young people are encouraged to aim high and expect jobs greater than their experience level due to the inferiority associated with ‘settling’. “Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSY's want to live Their Own Personal Dream,” writes Urban.
Anthony Carnevale, a director of research for Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce in the United States, says the millennial generation makes up about 40 percent of unemployment in the country. To add to this, a report by Newsweek says that millennials face the highest university fees and student loan debt than ever before, not to mention much stiffer competition when entering the workforce. Carnevale says that having a high school degree used to be enough to make it into the middle class, but today the bar is set much higher.
“They’re the first generation that needs to have a college degree and experience to compete, before they even enter the workforce,” he says, discussing the obstacles that millennials face today. Carnevale says that the worth of a high school education began to decline during the 1970's recession, and then “started to drop aggressively by 1983.” This raises an important question: Should students be taught to embrace enlightenment, that the sky is the limit when it comes to their career? Or should students be taught practicality, e.g. preparing for the job market? In today’s world, the latter seems far more beneficial.
“Unfortunately, the funny thing about the world is that it turns out to not be that easy of a place, and the weird thing about careers is that they’re actually quite hard,” says Tim Urban. “Great careers take years of blood, sweat and tears to build — even the ones with no flowers or unicorns on them — and even the most successful people are rarely doing anything that great in their early or mid-20's.” To back his statements, Urban refers to Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor and “GYPSY expert” who says that Generation Y has “unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward accepting negative feedback,” and “an inflated view of oneself.”
At 24-years-old, I am 100 percent a victim of this mentality. I dragged my feet through school, managed to scrape through a university degree, and then expected to be offered an amazing, challenging, life-changing career as soon as I sent off my first CV for a job application. About fifty applications later and receiving only about two replies (both rejections), is when the reality of adulthood kicked in. Throughout my childhood, I was told time and time again to appreciate my youth: “Make the most of it, you’re special” is repeated to children and teens by parents, teachers, celebrities and politicians.
But what does it mean to make the most of your youth? Does it mean embracing your spontaneous nature and diving into any and every spectacular opportunity that comes your way? Or does it mean taking things slow and adhering to your more practical nature, making thoughtful decisions that will ensure a prosperous future full of revenue and security? Neither necessarily leads to prosperity. It really comes down to luck, determination, good contacts and having thick-skin.
When adults tell children and teenagers to make the most of their youth, I think it really comes down to the fact that adulthood can often turn out to be pretty bleak. When teen years finally draw to an end, all of a sudden the pressures of adult-life burst through unforeseen doors, manifesting panic and doubt. “What are you going to do now?” is the daunting question every high school graduate is faced with. No longer can you rely on the familiar safe-haven of home and the comfortable cocoon your parents built around you. Simply entering the job market is enough to make even the most confident individual question themselves and their worth as a person.
I think Generation Y are becoming slaves to neo-liberalism which sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. In an article for The Guardian, George Monbiot describes neo-liberalism as redefining citizens as consumers “whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency.” He further adds: “Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty.”
This is the stark reality that we live under in modern societies. If you’re unable to ‘get yourself together’, compete in a cut-throat industry, establish a budding career, relationship, and enviable social status, society labels you a ‘letdown’ – a product of failed neo-liberalism. Modern success has warped into a competition of how many Instagram followers you have, whether you own a property, have sufficient savings, and if you appear to have a prosperous career on LinkedIn. Meanwhile the world is drowning in over-consumption, depression and bigotry.
“Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are un-enterprising,” Monbiot writes in his article. “Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.”
Monibot’s article explains to me why many adults look back on their youthful years and regret past actions, because those actions didn’t obtain the results that they expected. Children seem to embody lifestyles that are carefree and filled with passion and love, until they reach the age where they begin to understand the harsh realities of earning a living and being accepted under an enormous umbrella of rules established by law, religion and society. I think many adults wish that they could somehow show children what it’s like to be an adult; how all of the worries that children carry seem so far down the scale.
The pressure of supporting yourself (and in many cases an entire family) is an obvious contributor to stress and dissatisfaction when reaching adulthood (unless you’re filthy rich) and it’s inevitable, the same way it’s inevitable that you will eventually pass away. But these woes aren’t what seem to manifest dissatisfaction among young adults today in my opinion. In fact, I think the dissatisfaction and sadness that many adults feel is attributed to the image crafted adulthood we’re subjected to. The more successful a person feels, the more likely they are to share their life on social media. On the other hand, if a person is feeling uninspired and unhappy, they are less likely to share details of their life on social media. Therefore, people end up being exposed to the wonderful lives of a select group of people who have been lucky in life, while the rest sit back, scroll, and feel unworthy.
My sister once gave me an excellent piece of advice when I started my second job in Dubai. I was concerned that my abilities were amateur and that my colleagues were much more suited to the job than I was. Like many young professionals, I felt unworthy and inferior, stressed out because of my lack of experience, especially when I compared my professional achievements to my peers on Facebook and LinkedIn. I sought advice from my sister who told me: “Zane, nobody really knows what they’re doing at work. Everyone is trying to figure things out just like you.”
I think it’s clear that many of us do not feel like we measure up to the idealistic adult life that we were taught to yearn for from a young age, such as having a fulfilling career, an exciting and attractive lover who ‘understands you’, and a majestic house on a sizable piece of land. The introduction of social media has meant that we are constantly subjected to the image crafted lives of our peers, who upload the desirable aspects of their lives, tricking us into believing that we don’t measure up. Admit it, you do it. We all do. It’s difficult not to, because the satisfaction of the perception of achieving higher than your peers is addictive... and ultimately destructive.
As much as I looked forward to it as a child, I've come to realize that adult life is tough and full of unexpected woes; from not earning enough money to pay for a decent-sized apartment, to dealing with domineering bosses who have little tolerance for inexperience. It all adds up and can take a toll on anyone. I don't understand how children are supposed to be encouraged to learn and seek education as the key to success when they are surrounded by wealthy criminals and poor graduates who haven't managed to achieve anything from three years of expensive study.
The United Nations predicts that by 2050 the population will explode and reach 9.6 billion. Adult life is only going to get more competitive with more pressures and more things to worry about for Generation Y and Z. The sooner children understand the realities of adult life and the adversity that comes with it, the better they will be able to tackle it when the time comes, in order to enjoy a balanced and prosperous existence, free of unrealistic expectations.
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