I’m not kidding. I think we really are.
Before you come at me for this, hear me out: I spent the last 3 months with my family, full-time. I got no jobs in between, I spent most of my time at home, and the only time I left was for a vacation — with my mom.
It was first time I have been THAT close with them. Spending time to learn about my parents, grandparents, and great great grandparents, I saw something I didn’t see in the first 18 years living with them:
We are the only generation that has the privilege to live for ourselves.
A luxury no others had previously
I’m not exaggerating — nor am I generalizing this.
Our grandparents’ first priority was survival.
Our parents’ first priority was financial stability.
My grandpa and grandma was on survival mode during Vietnam war, and probably did your grandparents. The last century was filled with the most wars in history: World War I, then II, and many conflicts afterwards.
After the wars, it was the responsibility of the next generation — my parents — to rebuild the stability: financial, social, economic. Their first priority is having a stable life, not “making sure they feel fulfilled”.
This generation — we inherited all the fruits of their hard work. Because they survived, here we are in this world. Because they built a stable life and a roof for us to live under, we finally can worry about our well-being.
For once in a very long time, there’s a generation who could finally start looking inward.
The struggle to find the next thing to live for
I’m sure I have triggered a few of you, saying that poverty and wars are no longer our concerns. That’s not what I meant. We all know what is going on in the other parts of the world.
Thing is, if you are reading this, most likely you have the privilege to live without them. When our immediate reality is free of violence and scarcity — the basic human struggles, we feel lost finding the next thing to live for.
Maybe that’s why our generation has a hard time dealing with ourselves. An article from the Harvard Gazette in 2022 showed that Gen Z has the lowest scores across all dimensions of well-being.
We are overwhelmed with having ourselves as our own priorities. Because we have nothing else to benchmark against, our sadness feels overwhelming and endless.
Because our life is simply just us, seeing ourselves make a mistake feels like witnessing the world crumbling.
I just came back from a trip with my mom. One day, we met my cousin overseas and felt the happiest in a while. I asked my mom to write down three things that made her appreciate the most about that day.
I knew she was feeling stressed lately, and I wanted her to have something to remind her that it would be okay. She didn’t do it. Thinking back, I felt quite ridiculous asking my mom to do that.
If anyone knows that things will be okay, it’s our parents.
We have lived for what? 26 years. The downfalls we experienced are likely fewer than 5. Because our minds are not yet trained for such situations, we need the daily appreciation to remind ourselves that “this too shall pass”.
Our parents have lived 3 times as long as we have on this earth, I’m sure they know this better than anyone. And sure, mental health awareness was not as great back in the days. But our parents made it anyway.
So, what’s next?
This is my hypothesis: if the past generations gained such resilience by striving for the good greater than their own, maybe that’s the answer to our question:
We need to find the next thing to fight for, other than ourselves, and hand that down to our next generation.
Okay, so our grandparents fought for us to be here; our parents fought for us to live a comfortable life. Maybe, the least we can do is fight this world to continue existing so their efforts don’t go to waste.
Yes, I’m talking climate change.
It took million of years for us to evolve into the human we are. It took hundreds of years for our land to gain independence. It took our ancestors blood, sweat and tears to build the lives we have today.
This continuation of world destruction, intentionally or not, simply means pushing the RESET button for all. According to NASA:
The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones.
Basically, whatever we got will quite literally get all wiped out. I don’t know about you. But wasting that much collective efforts sounds like a dumb decision to me.
One might not worry about burning in hell, but I do worry about seeing my kids burning quite literally on this Earth.
Take care of ourselves — enjoy what we’ve inherited from our family. I’m not saying you should numb yourself and go out there to eat dirt.
But maybe when you feel ok, it’s time to find ways to care for something beyond ourselves: To help us tread though life easier. To give something to our children the same way our parents and grandparents did for us.
I used to avoid watching these climate change documentaries. It’s the kind of truth I know that once I am exposed to, I will feel guilty for not doing anything. Now, I’m gonna go educate myself on this.
And you’re welcome to join me on this too!
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