Gen Z-stential Dread
Gen Z has been questioning and dismantling existing societal norms when it comes to life structure and milestones, and exploring uncharted territories of personal choice and freedom to follow one’s true desires.
Via IG @coldarchive_youth @rachelbass_photography. Photography by Rachel Bass. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
In a recent conversation with my friend, we somehow came to the topic of the seeming impossibility and, frankly, impracticality of our generation owning a home. "We can travel the world or do a PhD; we can't buy a house anyway," was one of the things she said, and it made me laugh but rang true all the same. It was both a comforting and a scary thought—the idea that I can basically decide on any path I want in life. It might seem obvious, but it made me think about how far our generation has come in terms of dismantling and deconstructing societal norms and life stages that seemed so set in stone until recently.
There are many reasons why Generation Z seems to have wildly different mindsets about any and all aspects of life compared to generations that came before it. But the main root seems to be our general tendency to question everything we’re expected to take at face value. From the socially expected important life stages concerning family life, career, home ownership, and so on, to the very notions of love, identity, and various beliefs instilled in us. It’s not entirely clear how this happened—how we became the generation that repeatedly asks "Why?" like that annoying toddler cousin at a family gathering who won’t leave you alone. It probably has a lot to do with having grown up absorbed in technology since globalization and being able to virtually peek into different corners of the world and talk to anyone you want has definitely opened our eyes to how many different paths and experiences even exist around us. But I also think it was high time one generation got sick of blindly following everything they were told they should do and tried to figure out what is actually at the root of those expectations and which ones align with their wishes.
Starting with family milestones, Gen Z tends to often want marriage and children a bit later in life, and that is if they even want it in the first place. They often question different paths in romantic relationships that might suit them better than a traditional one—for example, long-term unmarried partnerships, and open or polyamorous relationships, as well as often question whether or not they genuinely want children. A lot of our notions of what romantic love is or can be have been enriched by experimenting with what makes us most happy and comfortable while keeping an open mind that it might not be something expected or common. Our generation has also been statistically noted to be the most politically liberal generation to date, which matters a lot for how much effort we put into fighting for diversity and human rights, and how we view less traditional relationships such as mixed-race and same-sex marriages and relationships.
This also applies to other areas, with work being one of the most prominent ones. Living to work and making your job and career the center of your daily life and aspirations has been massively overturned by the majority of our generation. Even people who do aspire to a corporate 9 to 5 job try way harder to work to live instead of living to work and fight much harder for their working rights and off-hours freedom. A lot of people also turn to flexible remote or freelance work and utilize the rising gig economy to its full potential since it often allows for much more freedom and a better work-life balance. Something that also contributed to work conditions becoming more flexible in terms of working from home was obviously the COVID-19 pandemic, which made us completely rethink the way we approach working life, and especially affected Gen Z who mostly didn’t even get to step into working life before the pandemic.
There’s another big factor that is prompting this phenomenon. Gen Z has been more affected by climate change than any generation prior and is the first generation to start taking its possible future impacts as seriously as they do. Climate activism has been on the major rise, and fighting to save our planet from ruin has also inevitably given us a certain dose of cynicism and existential dread about the ability of humans to stop this effectively. This makes us more likely to question the usefulness of traditional long-term life plans, and more likely to question what will truly make us happy while we’re still alive and well. In a way, this frequent eco-pessimism has made us more likely to live in the present and appreciate every opportunity we have right now, which has opened up a world of non-traditional life paths centered around doing everything we want as soon as possible. From this standpoint, investing your savings in traveling the world and doing menial jobs in your bucket list travel locations makes much more sense than slaving away at a boring corporate job and saving up to buy a house in who knows how many years.
Some members of the older generations, especially Millennials who came right before us, have said the Gen Z mindset has truly inspired them to rethink their past life choices and the ones they plan to make in the future. Are we entering an era of less pre-set structure and more freedom to truly find out what we want without overthinking other people’s reactions to those choices? Only time will tell.
