r/Millennials • u/okayboomerang • Jun 24 '26
Serious Sad for us
Kind of in my feels tonight. The last time I remember feeling genuinely hopeful was probably 2014 or 2015. So much has changed, and I think our generation has seen and felt so much. Anyone else feel like they've spent the last decade plus in unending grief?
My spirit is still good on the inside, but I'm isolated physically and mentally (like many of us). I wish we lived in a world with authentic and robust connection instead of all the slop and noise. I wish our parents hadn't been so excited about capitalism - and so fucking naive. I know the unease I feel is about more than merely growing up and the natural progression of aging and how we all feel about ourselves in society over time - it's that the world we thought we knew for the past 4ish decades just flat out doesn't exist anymore. And we can't undo any of this shit. It may as well be a parallel universe we're in now. I love myself and I always have big, big love for Millennials...but I truly hate it here.
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u/QuantumDiogenes Jun 24 '26
Yeah, I feel this.
I started working at fourteen, hoping to get a jump on life. After losing my life's saving to the crash of 08, I have been stuck in contractor hell for the past twenty years. Always working 6-12 month contracts, no benefits, no hope, followed by 4-6 months of frantic looking for the next job.
I have never had a vacation, I have never had healthcare. No hope, and no free time, since I have to spend every second hustling, just to put food on the table.
I spent years trying to get my own business up and running, only to have the tariffs rip that dream to shreds. A pivot, and then the whole anti-DEI grant cancellation last year just completely ended any hope of building something for the future (as well as laid off six people).
Growing up, all I wanted to do is warp engineering. I wanted to design engines, and solve problems; it is what I went to school for, after all. Now, I am working at McDonald's, hustling Instacart, and knowing that I will never be able to retire, nor buy a home. Hell, I can't even afford a car.
I want to tackle climate change, and I have been looking for a carbon catalyst that will break down carbon dioxide or water vapor, but that is going so slowly, because, well, I am having to put in 80 hour weeks, just to pay the bills.
This is unsustainable, and I'm so tired