It's common to criticize our generation of demanding everything right now. Instant gratification is said to be a problem for us and that we are impatient because we anticipate success without having to go through the arduous journey that earlier generations did. However, the discussion usually ends there. People don't realize that we were brought up using a formula.
A fairly obvious one which is:
Attend school.
Put in a lot of study time.
Obtain a degree.
Find a decent job.
Establish a life.
This was offered as the formula for stability for many years. Educators emphasized it and parents thought it was true hence it was reinforced by society. Life would unfold as it was meant to if you followed the procedures correctly. However, the equation modified at some point.
You can now do everything "right" and still be trapped in life's waiting room. Despite your credentials, the job market seems to be a maze with no way out. Experience is necessary for positions, but no one is prepared to provide it. There are few opportunities and fierce competition. When a job does eventually come up, it frequently comes with toxic workplace cultures, excessive expectations, or fatigue.
Stability was the promise, yet survival is the fact.
Additionally, as we're negotiating this ambiguity, comparison pressure subtly enters the picture. You are exposed to everyone else's highlight reel throughout the waiting period, which makes it risky. Social media turns into a history of people's advancements, including new lives, cars, apartments, and jobs. The same question remains in our minds even after we realize that these are carefully chosen moments:
Why not me yet?
Therefore, it's possible that we have patience issues. But not just because we're impatient. We struggle because we did as we were told. We spent years studying because we thought it would lead to opportunities. We bore the emotional burden of expectations, academic pressure, and student debt. As the first graduates in our families, many of us carry the aspirations of entire houses in addition to our own.
The ladder we were given is lacking a few rungs when we enter the actual world.
Salaries are not keeping up with the rate of inflation. Transportation, groceries, and rent are all more expensive. Compared to earlier generations at the same age, the concept of financial independence seems more distant. Even simple achievements like saving money or purchasing a home seem almost mythic.
Kubi nje.
Simply said, things are difficult. However, there is another aspect of this tale that is hardly recognized. Additionally, our generation is remarkably robust. People are still adapting in spite of the flawed formula. We pick up new abilities, we begin side projects, we change careers. Where there don't seem to be any opportunities, we make them, we create online communities and we challenge ineffective systems.
We are not the generation of quick satisfaction in many respects. We are the generation compelled to change the formula. We are discovering that the path to success may not be the same as it was for our predecessors. That stability could take on numerous forms and that careers may not be linear. Even if it may seem like it, waiting does not equate to failure.
In actuality, many young people's frustration is not due to entitlement or laziness. It is the emotional reaction to a promise that is no longer true. Perhaps our generation's true challenge is more than just exercising patience. Perhaps the goal is to create a completely new equation.