A question for those in their 20s and 30s...

[Locut0s]

Would you agree that our "generation" could be defined, among many other things, as a generation of depression? One common thread I find I keep connecting with others in my age group over is a deep sense of pessimism and at times downright clinical depression. It informs out world view, our tastes in the arts, and our humour, which tends to be darkly sarcastic and existentially black. It's clearly not the only thing that defines us, nor am I saying that other generations haven't had similar influential tones, but it seems particularly stark in ours.

[AngryAmish]

2. Prozac Nation

I am shocked how earnest Millennials are. Don't they understand that all of this is pointless except for the laughs?

[meadowlander]

3. Yes, I agree,

having just squeaked out of my 30s. Gen X did everything "ironically" to show how shit it was even though the mainsteam thought it was great. Millennials hipsters do things ironically to show how cool they think secretly think things are but that the mainstream doesn't realise.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

4. You just summed it up.

Life sucks, everything is stupid. Why are they still cheery?

[Locut0s]

6. I kind of straddle the line just between gen x and the Millenials

Born in 82. I'd say my mentality is more that of a gen X.

[Locut0s]

11. Lol. It's funny you never think that you will think of yourself as old...

I mean certainly factually you realise you are going to age. But it's not until some time in your 20s when you can just make out the vague arc your whole life that it dawns on you the true fleetingness of human mortality. You reach a point where you can mentally script out what your whole life might hypothetically look like. And at that moment time becomes visceral. You go from feeling that time is a hypothetical construct, to something desperately scarce and real. And suddenly you feel old.

[crazycatlady]

5. at 36 I agree with you

[taught_me_patience]

9. My experience is completely opposite

I'm in my later 30s and all of my cohorts that I hang around with are successful and positive people. The younger ones that I hung with were positive and very hard working. The general sense is that the baby boomers have fucked it up for everybody, though (they have).

[EarthFirst]

10. 37, here...

Overall, I am generally in a positive position in life. I've been in the same job for 13 years. Married, homeowner and one child.

Thankfully, our high-deductible healthcare come from my wife, or my overall satisfaction on our situation may be drastically different.

So I empathize with those who are in a less fortunate situation than we are.

However, I do have a sense of dissatisfaction towards the 'Boomer' generation who typically look upon us with general disgust and contempt.

"They're lazy!" "They're ungrateful!" "They're..."

That's really easy to say, when you spent an entire lifetime with a system set up to ensure that you were successful! Healthcare, pensions, competitive salaries and a host of other programs that ensured that "I got mine!"

Then, a portion of that generation went on to spend twenty years voting for politicians who spent every ounce of energy into stripping those protections and benefits away from the generation that would come next.

They sold their kids out!

It's easy to complain and simply give up. It's easy to just lay down and accept it. It's a lot harder for this age demographic to have these protections reinstated. However, it's unacceptable to blame the younger workforce for it's sense of complete despair at where we've gotten as a workforce.

Some empathy from the "I got mine!" generation is desperately needed because we are playing on a field that has drastically changed in the last 20 years. Many of them wouldn't recognize it, and I'm willing to bet that many of them wouldn't have accepted that as their own fate 30 years ago!

We aren't lazy. We aren't worthless. We are sick and tired of being blamed for economic circumstances that we inherited, though...

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

13. Are you talking about Millennials?

I'm 37, almost 38. I am either the youngest of the Gen Xers or the oldest of the Millennials. It sounds more appealing to be categorized as the youngest Gen Xers. I feel a little more like an Xer because my parents are boomers. My dad was even a hippie back in day and he went to Woodstock. I got to hear about that a lot growing up. I think Gen X and the Millennials are kind of living in the shadow of the Boomers. They still control everything. It is sad as another poster mentioned that the Boomers brought about great good with the civil rights movements, but now other Boomers are trying to erase all the progress made back then because they didn't agree with it. It seems like it is still all about the Boomers as far as this is their battle. The younger people, for the most part, don't have a problem with civil rights. Abortion has been legal our whole lives. These aren't our battles. We were born after these things came to pass and so we except it as that is the way things are and should be. It feels like to me that that the conservatives want to radically change our country to bring it back to a time that they liked better, but it is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to the younger people (myself included if I can get away with calling myself a young person). That's why this feels like bizarro world to me, but the older folks are still thinking like this is the 1960's. I don't think I would characterize Millennials as a generation of depression. I think they are a generation of hope and potential. Their story is still in the making.