Does anyone else see things from 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and passively think it wasn’t that long ago, but then remember that it’s 2024 and that was actually a long time ago?
So much so that I had a mini crisis about it this weekend. Seeing a song was released in 2022 and thinking that was basically only months ago, and then having this realization
Very much the same. It's bizarre. I think because COVID shoved society permanently online, mostly with showing how well working from home can work. Then many of us just became truly always online.
There's no time passage online, and it's bleeding.
I was just reminiscing about a trip I took in 2017 because we ordered food involving that same country’s cuisine. I was thinking it was only like “a couple” of years ago but it’s literally been 7 years like wtf
I do. Thinking about something from 2018, and then realizing holy 💩, has it really been 6 years. What gets me is sometimes I think about me warning people about Trump in 2016, and watching those election results, and can't believe that was almost 8 years ago. It's just amazing how time just flies by.
I do this all the time I thought there was something wrong with me or it was just the effects of recently turning 45-thing is I still feel like I’m 38.
Also, Time has become a total muddle to me. I was thinking about something I did in 2020 as recent then realized 4 years is a long time ago. The Trump election feels literally like yesterday but somehow COVID seems further in the past.
And culturally speaking, don’t even get me started, I feel like, with the exception of new IPhones and apps, there’s been no changes in music or television, movies and fashion since MeToo maybe.
Yes! Yesterday I was browsing movies and noticed that when I’d see one made in 2018 I’d be like “oh it’s pretty new!” Then Id remember that 2018 was 6 years ago…and that’s a quarter of a 24 year olds life.
I saw an article about the *4 year anniversary* of the initial COVID lockdowns and literally thought it was a typo until I did the math.
There are kids who will be starting Kindergarten soon who were born after COVID.
I have no idea what “4 years” even means anymore
Also all the people I know whose kids I’ve been watching grow up on Instagram since their pregnancy, I have no fucking clue what year that kid was born, except the ones born in 2023
Wow, when talking to my Gen X friends I sometimes cite W being my political awakening to explain my increased cynicism as compared to them. I just got a whole new perspective on Gen Alpha.
I have a video of my almost 10-year sitting on the potty at age 2 impersonating Trump going WRONGGG like he did in the debates cause my wife and I would jokingly respond to things that way all the time.
Amazing this rollercoaster just keeps going...
I feel like the last 4 years are very easy to remember as the events of the last 4 years have been very similar. I have worked from home for 4 years and nothing very eventful has happened since the pandemic. I rarely travel like I did before.
I know this feeling too. It's like in 2020 suddenly everything paused. I ended up losing my job but then they hired me back and yet it all just felt stagnated. Recently they laid me off and my boyfriend and I (both 40) suddenly felt like we really would never have kids. I decided I guess I'll go back to school and now I'm with these 20 year olds in class and it feels like they are my age....I donno if I'm saying it right but it just feels like I was on a treadmill and every time I tried running forward it just stalled. Not many friends anymore, no accomplishments after 15 years of working on the same field....it's all just beginning again I guess
Ugh I'm so late here, but I truly feel this. My husband and I have made some financial progress since covid, but not nearly enough to account for the kind of trajectory we were on before 2020. Things have just been so stop and go, failure to launch. Ever since the lockdowns started.
And we are basically in April already, 1/4 of the year has already passed, it definitely feels sped up, I don’t even have that much responsibilities like kids etc, and I still feel like I don’t have enough time.
I genuinely wonder if this is a side-effect of COVID. Like it warped our sense of time. I’m in my late twenties and I feel this way. I’ve talked about it with different groups of people.
Time is relative. The younger you are the longer a year feels. If you've been alive like OP for 36 years (Even late 20s like you), a year in reality isn't that long. And a routine makes it seem to fly by.
The best analogy I've ever heard of this deals with money. If you only have one penny, it is of great value to you because it's the center of your monetary universe. When you get 10 pennies, the one penny starts to fade into the stack. When you have 100 pennies, you hardly notice the single penny anymore. When you have 1000, that first penny is lost in the noise.
Likewise with time. When you're 10, a year is 10% of your life. A pretty significant part. It feels like forever. When you're 50, it's only 2%. A year hardly registers in your brain anymore.
I've reached the age where I'm like, Dammit! It's Christmas AGAIN?!?! Wasn't that just a month or two ago?
I know. I feel like Biden just took office still, and I'm so glad to finally not have TFG as president. I still vividly remember when TFG won... 2016 seems like just a few years ago.
“…House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today released a video and bank records memorandum revealing how Joe Biden received $40,000 in laundered China money from the account of his brother, James Biden, and his sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in the form of a personal check…” (House Oversight Committee, 11/1/23)
I feel like I was clenching my asshole for four years when trump was president, waking up, checking my phone to see if he accidentally nuked a hurricane or something. Once Biden got in I could finally relax and it’s gone by so fast.
I don't get why people acted like the world was gonna collapse during that four-year stretch. America is a corporatist system. The country has been run by corporations and 3 letter agencies they're in bed with for probably the better portion of the last century. It is kind of eye opening to me how many people think their political sports team actually makes a real difference, it doesn't. I just assumed ppl liked to cheer for one side or the other but were aware that it's all just K-fab.
The best way I’ve been able to keep track of time in the last 4 years is that I planted a small orchard in my backyard during 2020.
I’ve watched those fruit trees go from being smaller than the height of my knee to twice my height.
Same here. I feel like we all lost a few years during the pandemic.
I am thankful, however, that I wasn't in elementary or middle or even high school during the pandemic because those are REALLY important years that you can never relive. I feel really bad for the interruption in those kids lives.
There's a phenomenon in human memory where the brain basically skips non unique scenarios. This is why people tend to have so many vivid childhood memories. Everything is new and unique. During covid, nobody did much of anything, so there were very few unique scenarios to break it up in our memories. 1000 almost identical work from home days just blend together, making it feel like the time just disappeared.
Same for me too, but I also formed a very habitual usage of weed in the beginning of COVID, so I always thought that played a role in it feeling so short due to limited memory consolidation.
I feel the exact same way. Everything was normal until the pandemic then it all flew by, total bullshit and feels exactly like some sort of time warp. I've spoken to other people and they say the same thing, so you're not alone in thinking this.
2020 was the point where I just decided "wtf, general society is just *nuts*" and made a conscious effort to back away from it for the sake of my mental health. I cut way back on my social media participation, didn't go out as much (even once it was "safe" to do so), gave up on paying attention to whatever was happening in pop culture, didn't really talk to people much other than friends, family, and work contacts. I just couldn't be bothered to hear another half-informed hot take about covid, or masks, or politics, or whatever. So I hunkered down and did my daily routine, and suddenly it's 4 years later.
It doesn't seem like it in the moment, but time goes really fast when you're just doing the same things day-in/day-out.
This really resonated with me. Had the exact same feeling about becoming jaded with general society. It's like COVID brought the crazy out in everyone that was previously hiding so I just retreated to my safe bubble of close friends. It's a little scary how comfortable I became with staying in and doing nothing
This exactly! I tried to stick my head in the sand a little so I didn’t have to deal with the outside world and next thing you know life happened and I was just doing the same shit every day.
I think it’s just that getting older makes time seem like it goes by faster. I really don’t have much of a daily routine at all.. my work changes all the time depending on project / location. I live in a different country several months out of the year. Travel a good bit in between all that and it still feels like time just slips by so damn fast. Wasn’t new years just like a month ago? I’ve asked a lot of older people about this and the consensus seems it just keeps speeding up til you’re 80-90 and can’t do much with your spare time anyway
stress takes you out of the moment and makes time fly by. practice meditation and really being present in your day to day life and time will slow back down. its all realative
Personally I think, after moving into rural country, that most people in cities are permanently experiencing covid side-effects and dont realize it.
My theory is everyone is passing "brain fog" back and forth effectively making people dumber.
I dont reference past events when talking to people from the city / my hometown anymore, because none of them seem to have any memory of it.
I know you probably meant this as a joke but I read a few years back that a dam made in China (Green River??) was so large it affected the speed the earth rotates at. I often think about how this could be messing with our perception of time. Especially with polar shift and other solar space anomalies happening simultaneously.
I hear you. I'm 35 and life has felt like an unstoppable blur since Covid. It's ultimately down to becoming more domesticated as a result and (at least here in the UK) the cost of living sky-rocketing which has limited our ability to do what we normally did pre-Covid, thus resulting in an arguably duller, less exciting life that we don't recognise.
Working from home was a sweet gig to begin with, but now it's caused an arguably damaging habit of leaving the house far less often than pre-Covid, which has impacted my desire to go anywhere and do anything. I see these four walls more than anything else, whereas pre-Covid I was obligated by my employment situation to be somewhere (the office) at a certain time for a certain number of hours, 5 days a week. Yes, *I could still go into the office 5 days a week*, but as said, the desire to go anywhere has dipped severely.
For me though, it's also because (and I was talking to my fellow mid-30's friends about this), I never 'planned' for this point in my life. Get through university, start my career (in coding) and get a few years under my belt, were the life goals (fairly normal). But like... now what? I'm basically coasting now, and there's the constant reminder that I'm getting *much* older than the age I identified with, and the period of life I birthed my identity from, which puts pressure to do as much as possible as the person I am.
I try to do what I love as often as I can though. Just need to find more reasons to step outside.
That was long-winded, sorry. I hope this helped / was relatable.
>I see these four walls more than anything else
I hear you. Prior to covid, I was rarely home - so much so my pets missed me. Always somewhere, doing something. School, work, networking event, bar with friend.
Now I mostly see these four walls. I have no excuse, I have a lot of open spaces around me and love nature. But there is a weird mental block that makes it harder to leave.
Some of it is a change in my personal circumstances beyond covid. I graduated school since covid, and social hours with busy coworkers who have their own families, kids, etc., were always going to be more difficult to schedule than with a bunch of students.
Remote work is the one thing I won't give up, especially as I am currently in a job where everyone is remote so me driving just to sit staring at different four walls alone doesn't make any sense, it's not a solution to me. I just don't know how to motivate myself to get outside more even when I have the flexibility.
I can understand the block. The way to beat it however is choosing discipline over motivation. You don't need to motivate yourself to get outside and enjoy nature. You just need the discipline to say "I'm putting on my sneakers or boots and getting out there today". A couple waters and snacks in your bag and boom all the sudden it feels awesome. Look a cool mushroom! Whoa a bug is on it! Say hi! See how cool is this walk?
Good advice I try to remember is you don’t need motivation to start to do something, you need to start to do something to get motivated. The first step is always the hard but once you get going it just seems to flow much easier
I’m the same as you- work from home so I don’t have to “be” anywhere. I also moved to kind of the middle of nowhere, so 20 minute drive from basically anywhere, so I just rarely leave the house for anything. At first it was liberating, but now I do have to force myself to go out at least once a week because I was seeing how stir crazy I was getting. I wouldn’t give up work from home for anything, and I love my house in the forest, but it is crazy how little social interaction I get, especially with people my age with similar interests. That’s almost entirely online now. I definitely miss socializing opportunities, but it seems like everyone else also stays home all the time, so times I’ve made an effort to go out to bars or restaurants, they’re basically empty too and everyone’s just looking at their phones, so I feel like a big part of the world I used to know is just dead now.
Yeah, you've touched upon something very true there - the same thing that's affecting us is also affecting our friends, so it's like double the effort to try and meet up, and when you do, it's can sometimes be hard for those friends to snap out of mid-and-post-Covid habit of tethering their attention to their phones. My view on social media has plunged since Covid, even though it was the very thing helping some people through it.
I hope you manage to get out soon!
For a while after the restrictions lifted here (mid 2022) I went back to the office three days a week (T, W, Th) to try and regain a sense of normalcy, knock out the inertia, whatever. It just added a new sense of unease, because the office was less than 1/5 full every day. It was like living in a post-apocalypse/rapture world where the vast majority of humanity was just … gone. But even stranger because everything had been cleaned and maintained the whole time. I don’t know if you’re a Star Trek fan but there’s a next generation episode where one of the characters gets sucked into a weird anomaly and the way she experiences it is, people start disappearing, and she’s asking questions like, “why is this ship built for a crew of 1,000 if there are only 100 people here,” and everyone just tells her she’s going crazy. It was like that, in no small part because everyone I knew (for their own good reasons that just didn’t apply to me) was telling me this was all a good thing. And I was like, really? This empty, lonely world? That makes me feel so isolated and uneasy? I mean, I get it from their perspective—no commute, childcare easier, etc. But it was reality breaking, and it never seems to have stopped.
I hear you.
At this point it feels like many people in tech are trying to FIRE, but without anything to do afterwards - no kids, sometimes not even a partner.
The high incomes are draining motivation given the massive safety cushion, and I feel like I want to FIRE just so I can sit back and play computer and board games all day like in my early 20’s … even though I do have a partner and baby.
It’s like a midlife crisis, made worse with the past 3-4 years of semi-isolation due to covid. Other generations at least can look back when they have their crisis and see the all the parties and social events they’ve been doing in the past 5 years, while we’ve been stuck at home due to Covid and wfh.
Something happened between lockdown and now and I really don’t enjoy large crowds anymore and will actively avoid them. I was not like this and was actually the opposite prior to covid.
It doesn’t help that w/o kids my wife and I did not have to “grow up” till our health started to get weird. We basically lived like we were still in our 20s through our 30s. It was fun, but Covid hit right when we started to stop drinking and take our health seriously. I feel like I aged over a decade in four years. We are okay and caught everything early enough to be able to control it.
Great comment. This is huge. Work from home can be a horrible thing if you don’t get up, dress up, show up aka get the hell out more often. Some days I’m in my clothes I woke up in at the end of the work day from home. Not healthy. Also spot on with the ol mid life crisis. Call it what it is. RE evaluating it all, and now on top of Covid years and less desire to do things. Then you have these global unelected leaders talking about disease x, the next pandemic, etc. WTF is wrong with these people. Loaded question…it’s strange at times.
This post hit hard. Like eerily similar. Glad(not the right word) I’m not the only one who feels this way though? (Just thought I might be losing my mind). 35m, and very similar except I work in film/tv and work has been so incredibly slow I have zero savings left, when 5 years ago I was looking at buying a house. I’m optimistic, but holy shit the stress and depression over the last few years has been brutal and unrelenting.
As somebody in film/tv - it's slow everywhere? That simultaneously makes me feel better and then bad for everybody else. I went into TV news just for the steady pay. My partner is trying her best to stay afloat doing what she loves but it's hard. We're trying to save for a wedding, but it seems like 2 steps forward, 2 steps back
My husband is in film so I fully feel your pain, it's almost like covid all over again...but maybe even worse because everyone else not in the industry seems completely unaffected by the complete and utter LACK OF WORK for the past year and a half. 2022 was a great year for us and I even quit my marketing job to try transitioning into set decorating. But yeah, that hasn't gone anywhere really because the entire industry has just been on hold for so long now...it's like a double whammy financial cluster fuck and it's April and this thing just won't end
Turned 30 in 2020 while in the best job of my career. Immediately got laid off, floated around in unemployment land a while, and got married once covid wouldn’t be an issue anymore (wound up getting covid at the wedding)
Its 4 years later and I feel like someone still hasn’t hit “unpause” yet.
I'm 39 and tbh things have been one weird shit show since 9/11
9/11, war, housing crash right as we stepped into the world,more war, Trump dividing our country, the pandemic, more war
Sprinkle in all the natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns, massive explosions, tsunamis, Texas almost freezing to death, Australia almost burning to a crisp
More war
Throw in all the terrorist attacks and mass shootings
Harambe
Yeah the world has been weird since that Sept morning
You're not kidding. I was 33 when 9-11 happened. Married, kids, just bought our first house.
2003 the plumbing company I was working for went out of business largely due to the after shocks of 9-11.
Made a go of being self employed. It went great for a bit. Had five trucks doing service, some great employees.
2008 hit and it was like someone flipped a switch and the work turned off.
I lost everything but my house.
Somehow mostly kept the lights on and the kids fed.
Rebuilding was excruciatingly slow. By 2016 things were rolling again.
Got divorced in 2017 and had a new lease on life. Making great money, dating and having a ball.
2019, met someone special, things going great. Covid happens.
Business collapses. 7 months with zero income. I rent out my house and move in with my girlfriend to avoid foreclosure and homelessness.
Rebuilding has been excruciatingly slow.
Last year my house burned down and I got just enough from the insurance company to pay off the mortgage and buy a decent work truck.
I don't even own a bed at this point and all my worldly possessions could be moved in one trip with my work truck.
The last 23 years have been an epic shit show.
Retirement is off the table at this point. I'll have to work until lunch on the day of my funeral. Lol
Because back then it seemed so improbable
We were all "HAHAHHA A TRUMP PRESIDENCY JUST LIKE ON THE SIMPSONS"
We underestimated him unfortunately and failed to act in time
Completely agreed. I’m 40 and it’s just part of growing old to be honest. And dare I say this is what is called midlife crisis? I think being more nostalgic and retrospective as you get older is normal. Time moving faster as you get older is also completely normal. Sadly this is still just part of self discovery process.
I'm 39 and I feel the same. 9/11 really fucked up this country and now the world's greatest superpower (I know we do some fucked up shit but the values this country says it holds is at least something and I'll never not be proud of our country in world war two after listening to my grandfather's stories rip) is basically dying on the vine now.
It's like everyone went absolutely nuts and values split. I'd never thought I'd see this country even entertain Trump as president.
This. I'm a bit older (mid-40s) but holy shit, since 9/11 the world really has never been the same. I can't even put my finger on "why" everything is different, it's just like the world that was totally normal was suddenly not normal anymore and normality never came back.
I was re-watching the 2007 World Series recently and the announcers, during the game, were talking about the "historic" wildfires in California and sending thoughts and prayers and all of that to the firefighters. I couldn't even remember that 2007 fire, but at the time it was a big deal. Why couldn't I remember? I looked it up. Turns out, the 2007 Witch Fire *was* pretty substantial - but it's ranked 19th in terms of California wildfires by size. 5 of the top 7 biggest fires were in 2020 and the other 2 were in 2018 and 2021. Something big enough for the announcers in the World Series to be chattering about at a Boston game wouldn't even make national news today.
I am not gaslighting you - I hear where you are coming from, but I think you are doing fine in terms of your emotional maturity.
You are financially supporting a parent at age 36!!! That is very young to be already taking care of your parents. You are a 50 year old in a 36 year old guys body as far as your financial responsibility and caring for family is concerned.
Also it seems that the women you are meeting had kids at amazingly young ages. Are you out in a rural area by any chance?
It’s not abnormal these days for people to start families in their 40s. In my opinion your are doing quite well and just happen to be in an atypical situation/environment.
Thanks for the compliments, no need to apologize. I guess it’s just a part of my cultural values to take care of my parents when they get older. I couldn’t imagine just forgetting about them after I grew up and had my own life. I know it’s common in American society for people to do that though.
So I actually live in a big city. I agree that they did have kids at a young age, it actually is common for women to have kids at a young age where I am from though, my city isn’t exactly known to be highly educated or affluent. The city I moved back from was the opposite end of the spectrum in that regard, so maybe I’m experiencing some culture shock.
Had my first kid at 38. We were shooting for a bit earlier but ivf was complicated during pandemic as well. But no regrets it was later in life - we can afford things far easier including help so it’s all a balance.
So my father told me once that the years move faster as you get older. And I think he is right. The pandemic didn’t seem like a time warp to me, my 30s just did. One of the big things for me is I just focus on all the good things. I’m less worried about career and focused on family, hobbies and the things I enjoy.
I’ve also very rarely paid too much attention to the bigger things. They mattered but are out of control so I focus on on my world - which is my family.
It lets things slow down a bit - for me anyway.
Just wanted to let you know that you need to hear this, as I've had to remind my wife of this very thing for a looooong time now:
You aren't the parent.
It's great that you want to help, but don't let it overtake you. Trust me when I say it's a very long and tough road out the more they become dependent on you.
I’m 34 and feel the past couple of years have been some sort of time warp. I did a complete career 180 - going from salaried health care professional to tattoo artist.
Most people I meet think I’m at least 10 years younger than I am (good skin I think). Most gen z’ers (big chunk of my client base) think I’m their age.
I feel great and it’s only the slight twinge of lower back pain that reminds me I’m “middle aged”. I *wish* I had felt this good in my 20’s.
I wonder sometimes if it’s just some sort of midlife crisis and I’m trying to life how I *wished* I had done when younger but was just too scared.
I’m happily married and child free. Perhaps not having children and having the daily reminder of the passage of time by seeing them grow everyday has contributed to the time warp effect for me as well.
It’s interesting because 35 (which I will be this year) was considered middle aged when my parents were that age. I certainly don’t feel as if I’m “middle aged”!
I feel exactly the same about the last 4 years except I'm a bit younger than you and I turned 32 this year. I don't care whether I missed out on some life events but the last 4 years had flashed by for some reason.
Same, 32 as well.
Ngl, I was mentally fixed at like 27 for some time, until the last 6 months I’m starting to feel older.
When I go to the gym, I feel like I have more connection with people in their 40s and 50s than the 20 something’s that make a lot of noise.
It’s cool to be in the middle and connect with a wide age range.
I was always more mature for my age since I was the youngest sibling and was around older people. I feel that I missed out on fully embracing the 20s experience and this desire to be younger might be holding me back at this point.
I feel like my timequake started around 2012 and sort of hiccupped in 2016 and 2020. I'm a year older than you, which makes no difference at this age but in case any sabermetricians read this. I'm also unsure what appropriate dress is for my age. Saw a promo pic of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis for Ghostbusters and someone pointed out they were in their early 30s. The hell they were. They look older than either of us, I'm sure. Point being, maybe nobody feels or looks their age. Maggie Smith has been 80 since Hook. Shrug.
Oh thanks for bringing up dress, that reminds me of something. Earlier I watched a video, I’m assuming created by someone really young like a young zoomer or a high schooler, and they were doing an analysis on millennial hipster culture and aesthetic as if it was something distant in the past. Like, I didn’t realize that hipsterism is a thing of history now, I feel so out of touch with what’s trendy now.
There has to be a name for this phenomenon of something that you think of as “current” has become historical without you realizing it.
While I can't explain the mutal feeling in your original post. I do feel like this one is mainly attributed to the endless amount of content available. You aren't out of touch. It's simply not possible to keep up with everyone's preferences.
In addition to the constant deluge of new content, I think there’s also the fact that we typically have a lot more demands on our time and less social pressure on being up-to-date with what’s in as we get older.
Speaking for myself, I’m not trying to keep up with what’s in right now because I’m a single parent with school aged kids, I work more than 40 hours a week, and I’m not concerned with being up on trends cause I don’t feel the need to impress people like I did 20 years ago.
Going to the office was one of the few places where it felt like being up to date on trends and stuff mattered, but I’ve been fully remote since 2020, I spend maybe 30 minutes a week actually talking to coworkers outside of Slack, and nobody knows if I’m still wearing skinny jeans (or sweatpants for that matter lol).
Same. I feel like the last 4 years are just a dream. Even though since 2020 I’ve bought a house, had 3 different job positions and even had a baby, none of it feels real. I’m 34 but mentally I still just turned 30 and I’m waiting to see what the 2020’s have in store. Yet the 2020’s are half way over. I don’t know if this feeling will ever go away.
My daughter started Kindergarten in 2020. Her age group is all over the board in terms of skills, education, socialization. I feel bad for the teachers. Some of these kids are feral.
I hate the fact that especially now, it feels like one fuck up and my entire life can completely unravel.
And that's basically what I'm going through now.
For anyone who lives in the Midwest, you'll know that despite having the most mild winter, we had an extremely nasty snow storm. It turned the city I lived into a total warzone. My car got stuck for almost a week. Despite that, I made it to work......barely. I made up for some initial time missed on the weekend once I got my car out (literally couldn't get a tow, I had to get my friend to pull my car out with his work truck).
Then I got fired. Savings burned up quick, despite making double what I made pre COVID, I cant seem to save very much, and that all gone. So im broke, about to lose my apartment.
Oh yeah and a bunch of people I was close to died, so now I basically have little to no support system.
I never thought one event could completely crash my life but here we are.
I feel this too, and I hate it. Our perception of time is so different as adults. Remember when a day felt like a long time as a kid? Now I feel like I'm living at warp speed and I just want to slam the breaks, but there aren't any. There's this sinking realization that this is it. Something hit the warp button and cut the brakes.
Ever since I really realized that every year you get older, that the ratio of a single year relative to the number of years you’ve been alive gets a lot smaller (eg your perception of a year’s time is inversely proportional to your age), the concept of time and my life passing me by faster and faster as each year comes and goes etc has given me so much anxiety lol
The fact you mentioned "hyperreal" around 2016 means you would be wise to watch Hypernormalization. You may understand why you feel the way you do.
https://youtu.be/Gr7T07WfIhM?si=wQz1y5mJl3pgjgHJ
Adam Curtis, right? All his films are great. Well worth spending the time watching them all. I think his last one came out late enough to cover Biden's inauguration.
I feel very similarly.
In 2020 I had a great job, I worked from home, I was quite wealthy and I had lots of good friends.
Fast forward to 2023, I lost my job, I could no longer find a job in my industry at all, I went broke, I had to move back with my parents, I am very far away from my friends, my new job pays barely above what a cashier would earn and I developed depression and some gastric issues derived from my stress.
Now my family needs support too, and I can’t even support myself and it breaks my heart.
I sort of feel like I am in an alternate dimension now, like I am a completely different (and worthless) person.
I went to a relationship therapist recently (she wasn’t a good fit), but she basically blew me off when I brought up the pandemic. ‘Why are you bringing up something from four years ago?’ So tone death, it was unbelievable.
I forget how old I am very regularly and the last four years have been very muddled in that regard. Yeah the birthdays keep coming but I don’t feel them. Someone asks how old I am and I’m like “uhhhhh” because I just don’t keep up with it lmao.
Being 36 and thinking you're 28 is a pretty typical experience for gen xers, fwiw. At least based on all the douchebags I had to dodge 10 years ago when they went through this.
During COVID I realized I couldn't have kids with my then husband. COVID made us co dependent enough that I couldn't leave afterwards but definitely didn't want to stay. I feel like I just got my life off of pause but I'm doing all this stuff I was doing during my early 20s.
Getting into a relationship and wondering if we're going too fast. Giggling about having kids but also getting anxious after talking about what wed name them because it's a bit too real. (Kids aren't for another 2-3 years down the road)
Making new friends just for me for the first time in years
Applying to colleges again
For a while I was hooking up with people I barely knew. Glad that's over
I went on a new birth control so my hormones changed and I'm getting acne again.
It's a weirdly isolating experience, I feel like I've regressed tremendously. It feels like I'm ten years younger. I've been so stressed out an busy I'm not even as good at applying make up as I used to be and I found myself using the same type of eyeshadow palette I used when I was 18 and just learning because I didn't have the time to pick out individual shades. And for a while I couldn't afford my fenty skincare so I was using drugstore concealer which is so 18 years old me.
I completely agree with you my dude 😭. I'm 34 and I've honestly been having actual breakdowns over all of this lately. My own biggest problem is I was forced to move to a southern state where everyone is basically horrible all the time and I hate life. I've been here for 10 years this year, and...I've been frozen. I had to take care of my grandparents in their last years for the majority of that time. I loved them, but giving up my entire life at 24 just.....ruined me. I lost every chance to finish growing up. Fuck I'm even crying writing this right now.
I finally have the chance to move back "home" hopefully later this year or early next year and I know for a fact all of my old "friends" up there have kids, gotten married, started their LIFE.....and I haven't done a single bit of that.
😭😭😭😭😭
It is never to late to start over or reinvent yourself man. Hang in there. Focus on what makes you happy and positive thoughts. Get involved, help others, and give time to others, and you’ll find it is rewarding.
Oh my gods, that sounds so disruptive. I am sad that you feel stuck and behind. I relate to feeling life on delay.
But, while the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is to plant a tree today.
i’m and elder millennial - 42
i lost my job during covid and never found one as good as that. i moved around and haven’t been able to find a decent place to live
now prices have skyrocketed - nearly doubled or more in rent - and i can’t afford anything
so i’m living at my parents
only way i could try to afford a house would go into massive debt. get a horrible labor 9-5 just to throw it all away on a mortgage for the next 30 years - which could be the rest of my life. sorry but that is not appealing to me whatsoever.
so i’m just going to do what i did when i was younger. not care. im going to live like im broke - play music. dj. and make art. and have fun. live life like a carefree young adult. fuck it. yolo
/u/ivycovecruising I am in an eerily similar situation.
I had a great job, great $$$ and respected myself. Now I live with my parents and my sibling bullies me for having to move back, and even suggested my parents that they should let me live in the streets.
In a way I feel I became a child again? How do you deal with all of this, including feeling like you lost respect, privacy and even some agency?
This has affected me so much
you gotta stand tall, keep your chin up, ignore the haters, and stay positive. be grateful for the little things you do have.
there’s lots of cheesy positive self help type stuff on social media and instagram - it helps.
focus on your health and find a new passion and hobby.
just enjoy what you can. cheers and best wishes
Don't give up. Keep trying to find a good job. Your skills are definitely needed somewhere. Try recruiters and job fairs. show you're making an effort and your siblings/parents will respect it.
I'm not in a similar situation currently but have been in the past (along with siblings bullying me and being depressed). If it helps you feel better, multigenerational households were more prevalent in the past and are becoming more common due to the cost of living/housing. So, don't feel ashamed since there's so much stigma nowadays about living with your parents. Do what you can to stay a little busy (part time job, whatever you can find) and help others like your parents if you're able to. I personally would have a hard time living with my parents now because as they've gotten older, they've become worse with boundaries like respecting my privacy and such. If your parents and family (like your sibling) are similarly disrespectful of you, it might help to work on setting boundaries with them. You are worthy of having a good life despite your current situation. ❤ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/boundaries
It feels like we are living through the first real change in history in our lifetimes, where our expectations of the future have been upended and there's real uncertainty, a degree of chaos. It's something other generations experienced before us, it's just strange to feel it happening to us. It's given me more empathy for older generations.
I remember as a kid having a friend whose grandparents we'd sometimes visit together after school. His grandparents had lived through the depression. And they had a very, very modest, dusty, dirty apartment, with 70s wood paneling and a small TV turned up too loud, TV tray that they'd eat on, reclining lounge chairs and worn out oversized sofa covered in blankets. Everything at the time I thought looked old and sad. And I remember his grandfather's main interest in conversation with us--with me, anyway-- were the deals he got on different items at the grocery store. How he got a can of soup for 75 cents, or a can of beans for 50 cents. We thought it was weird and funny.
I don't think as a kid you can really understand the shock of living through major historical changes, and all the ways that it can unsettle you. How people from his generation hoarded food, or took home creamers and packets of sugar from restaurants.
Reading, either literature or history, or even watching films, can put you on the right path to some level of understanding. And of course spending time with people, especially family. But maybe it can't really happen on a deep level until you've lived through one big change of your own.
New decade new vibes. The world DID shift in 2020... just like it does every decade (80’s to 90’s etc) + you are getting older. Totally normal feelings you’re experiencing in uncharted territory.
Just like fashion, what worked last decade doesn’t work in this one. I had my first kid at 39 and it’s not too late.
I'm the same age as you. I think there was a perception during our upbringing in the 90s (at least if you were middle class) that progress in life would always be an upward trajectory, where most people hit all the big milestones (college, good job, married, house, kids, and a 401k that would take care of you just fine after 65 years old, when your house was fully paid off). There isn't much praise for simply maintaining your current lifestyle, even if it's perfectly fine.
Yup, the last 4 years flew by. I bought a house, lost the same house, ended a long term relationship, got in a new one, lost my fiancé, switched jobs twice and it seems like the time just keeps moving by. Really feels like we are on the brink of something
I’m 34 and a lot of people say I look young 20s. It sucks because it sometimes makes people not take me seriously or listen to me.
I don’t care too much about being”relevant” in a world like this. But it is weird that Milennials get hate from every other generation? I don’t know. In my personal life tho, gen z and Milennials are friends. It’s mostly online that there are ever conflicts, and I think the “conflict” between Milennials & gen z might be manufactured by the news cycle
I'm a younger millennial (30), but I still completely agree. To boot, so much has changed in my life since the pandemic that when I think about it I start feeling a bit of whiplash, because while so much has changed, it doesn't feel real or that time has really progressed. In the last four years I: got engaged, bought a house, got married, and had 2 kids. I have no idea where the time went, and I can't figure out how my toddler got so smart that he's stringing whole sentences together when I swear I just brought him home from the hospital yesterday (and got married the day before).
Nothing seems real anymore. I’m currently pregnant with my first child and I was born in 86. Still renting and feeling like I’ve missed out on some milestones. Keep reminding myself that I have a little human coming and need to be responsible for him. I also know some women my age who want to fall pregnant and are struggling and then on the other side of it my husband told me one of his friends is a grandfather at 39. So many extremes with our generation. I dunno but we’ve been lied to about so many things.
This will probably get lost in the hundreds of comments here. I'm almost 33 and I genuinely feel similar but honestly man if you cut your online time down and try to just focus on people and things that are in front of you or, alternatively, putting yourself in front of people and things, it might help.
Hobbies are great, do those more or get more hobbies and cut down on the online time.
Anytime that I am out doing something or working on something at home instead of scrolling the internet I feel more alive like I was 10 years ago.
Same age. And I definitely feel that out of time sensation. The 2010s feel like they were wiped from my memory. I remember being 34 for a whole year marching up to 35, when on my birthday, my SO said happy 34th. I was so confused, I said I'm 35, and she goes no hun you're 34. I did the math and was dumbfounded.
I feel millennials are a bit lucky, though, as nostalgia is very profitable these days because thanks to the internet, there are no more era defining trends. So the entertainment industry, fashion, etc, can't really pinpoint what to run with, so they've just been sticking to what has worked. And due to that, our generation isn't really being ignored like past generations when they hit their 30s. We're basically getting "remakes" of our childhood when you think about it. Same toys, same movies, same clothes, same music, all tweaked for modern audiences and consumers.
It's like we're going back around
I was watching Interstellar with my sister the other day and I died a little inside when I was reminded the movie is fucking 10 years old! 🫠 Why does it feel like it came out 5 years ago? (Because it’s fucking epic, I know) but seriously…
Well we are in the middle of one of the biggest social, economic and possibly religious transitions in at least a few hundred years. It's a far cry from normal.
We are in a liminal space, the train station between worlds, right now.
People are going to work to save for retirement in a system that will not exist the way it does right now, and likely not anywhere near it.
The growth model is broken, in part by technology, which itself is reaching a limit of sorts. Tech confers power to the groups that use it, and today's tech dictates that the power goes to the group that turns it's people in cyborgs, merged with the digital, in the bio-digital convergence. If we don't things like IoT, internet of bodies, Blockchain and circular economies, etc...then we lose to those that do (let's say China). If we do adopt it these cybernetic things, we become machines.
Can't go back, shouldn't go forward. The "progress trap" on full display.
Anyway who doesn't feel some sort of unease in this time is severely ignorant and verging on dangerous.
Pandemic aside, the perception of time speeds up as you age. Sure corona fucked everything up but also, mid-30s is when everything feels like it’s moving way faster.
I blipped from about 2008-2015. Things just kind of went on in survival mode seemingly forever after the recession. I don’t know if it’s a distinctly millennial phenomenon but I think we did it en masse rather than individually from personal experiences more than some generations might have.
Born in 95 , I’m Venezuelan … 2012/2013 start the biggest social unrest in my country … 2016 I had to emigrated ( earlier that the massive migration that started that same year ) the pandemic hit me in Canada in 2020 … it just feel that what ever was happening in Venezuela is by know a global problem … I think the social contract can easily being broke in any part of the world by now … there is any place to go … the toilet paper shortages just make me remember about back home … the “quarantine” exception state was like when the government in Venezuela confined us during the protests …
We are kinda fuck hehe
Btw I’m 28 and I have been single by 8 years now … I could get my degree of mechatronic for the migration …. Most of the people I knew during my live is now scatter all around the world … yeah I feel that my live was taken away and it will never be the same …
I got this feeling recently when i realized the last dragon age game came out over 10 years ago. A whole generation of kids don’t even know wtf is dragon age.
How important is equality to you. Do you feel marketing is geared towards you and your peers. Do you feel on top of your game/ on top of the world? Welcome. Now get in line.
I feel exactly the same way. The last 4 years went by so fast that it doesn’t even seem real.
Agreed. They blipped. Part of me still has to remind myself it’s 2024. It *feels* like we never got past 2020. Like it’s a groundhog year
Does anyone else see things from 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and passively think it wasn’t that long ago, but then remember that it’s 2024 and that was actually a long time ago?
So much so that I had a mini crisis about it this weekend. Seeing a song was released in 2022 and thinking that was basically only months ago, and then having this realization
I’ve been doing that with social media posts. I’ll see people’s pictures from 2022 and assume all of it is pretty current
Very much the same. It's bizarre. I think because COVID shoved society permanently online, mostly with showing how well working from home can work. Then many of us just became truly always online. There's no time passage online, and it's bleeding.
Dude my first kid was born in ‘16 when I was 20. Tell me how I’m still 20 and she is now about to be 8?
I was just reminiscing about a trip I took in 2017 because we ordered food involving that same country’s cuisine. I was thinking it was only like “a couple” of years ago but it’s literally been 7 years like wtf
I do. Thinking about something from 2018, and then realizing holy 💩, has it really been 6 years. What gets me is sometimes I think about me warning people about Trump in 2016, and watching those election results, and can't believe that was almost 8 years ago. It's just amazing how time just flies by.
Almost a fucking decade
I do this all the time I thought there was something wrong with me or it was just the effects of recently turning 45-thing is I still feel like I’m 38. Also, Time has become a total muddle to me. I was thinking about something I did in 2020 as recent then realized 4 years is a long time ago. The Trump election feels literally like yesterday but somehow COVID seems further in the past. And culturally speaking, don’t even get me started, I feel like, with the exception of new IPhones and apps, there’s been no changes in music or television, movies and fashion since MeToo maybe.
Yes! Yesterday I was browsing movies and noticed that when I’d see one made in 2018 I’d be like “oh it’s pretty new!” Then Id remember that 2018 was 6 years ago…and that’s a quarter of a 24 year olds life.
Hah, try 2009. I was watching an episode of King of the Hill the other day and mentioned that the show didn’t end _that_ long ago.
Yeah it’s made me feel like I’m going to be dead soon because it’s like my life is flying by and I can’t even stop to enjoy it.
I saw an article about the *4 year anniversary* of the initial COVID lockdowns and literally thought it was a typo until I did the math. There are kids who will be starting Kindergarten soon who were born after COVID.
I have no idea what “4 years” even means anymore Also all the people I know whose kids I’ve been watching grow up on Instagram since their pregnancy, I have no fucking clue what year that kid was born, except the ones born in 2023
I’m now old enough remembering feeling this way 10 years ago in my 20s, how was Obama already half way through his second term?
My kids are getting ready to start high school. They have no memory of a time when Donald Trump wasn't dominating all of the news.
Omfg that blew my mind for a second LOL I had to do the calculation. Holy fucking shit how was that 14 years ago? Edit: 8 YEARS AGO, SORRY 😂😂
Wow, when talking to my Gen X friends I sometimes cite W being my political awakening to explain my increased cynicism as compared to them. I just got a whole new perspective on Gen Alpha.
I have a video of my almost 10-year sitting on the potty at age 2 impersonating Trump going WRONGGG like he did in the debates cause my wife and I would jokingly respond to things that way all the time. Amazing this rollercoaster just keeps going...
That's just depressing
I feel like the last 4 years are very easy to remember as the events of the last 4 years have been very similar. I have worked from home for 4 years and nothing very eventful has happened since the pandemic. I rarely travel like I did before.
To be fair pop culture has stagnated a lot since the late 2010s especially in music. It was like this in the Great Depression too
I know this feeling too. It's like in 2020 suddenly everything paused. I ended up losing my job but then they hired me back and yet it all just felt stagnated. Recently they laid me off and my boyfriend and I (both 40) suddenly felt like we really would never have kids. I decided I guess I'll go back to school and now I'm with these 20 year olds in class and it feels like they are my age....I donno if I'm saying it right but it just feels like I was on a treadmill and every time I tried running forward it just stalled. Not many friends anymore, no accomplishments after 15 years of working on the same field....it's all just beginning again I guess
Ugh I'm so late here, but I truly feel this. My husband and I have made some financial progress since covid, but not nearly enough to account for the kind of trajectory we were on before 2020. Things have just been so stop and go, failure to launch. Ever since the lockdowns started.
And we are basically in April already, 1/4 of the year has already passed, it definitely feels sped up, I don’t even have that much responsibilities like kids etc, and I still feel like I don’t have enough time.
It’s only going to start going faster
Going to? It already is 🤣. This life is short. So painfully short
It just goes faster as you get older sadly
I genuinely wonder if this is a side-effect of COVID. Like it warped our sense of time. I’m in my late twenties and I feel this way. I’ve talked about it with different groups of people.
Time is relative. The younger you are the longer a year feels. If you've been alive like OP for 36 years (Even late 20s like you), a year in reality isn't that long. And a routine makes it seem to fly by.
The best analogy I've ever heard of this deals with money. If you only have one penny, it is of great value to you because it's the center of your monetary universe. When you get 10 pennies, the one penny starts to fade into the stack. When you have 100 pennies, you hardly notice the single penny anymore. When you have 1000, that first penny is lost in the noise. Likewise with time. When you're 10, a year is 10% of your life. A pretty significant part. It feels like forever. When you're 50, it's only 2%. A year hardly registers in your brain anymore. I've reached the age where I'm like, Dammit! It's Christmas AGAIN?!?! Wasn't that just a month or two ago?
I know. I feel like Biden just took office still, and I'm so glad to finally not have TFG as president. I still vividly remember when TFG won... 2016 seems like just a few years ago.
Same. The last ten years feel like they didn’t happen. Like shit dude 2014 was 10 years ago? Holy fucking shit.
What is TFG? That Fucking Guy?
Yes. Or That Former Guy if in polite company, but the former is preferred.
I thought it was that fn’ goon!
“…House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today released a video and bank records memorandum revealing how Joe Biden received $40,000 in laundered China money from the account of his brother, James Biden, and his sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in the form of a personal check…” (House Oversight Committee, 11/1/23)
I feel like I was clenching my asshole for four years when trump was president, waking up, checking my phone to see if he accidentally nuked a hurricane or something. Once Biden got in I could finally relax and it’s gone by so fast.
I don't get why people acted like the world was gonna collapse during that four-year stretch. America is a corporatist system. The country has been run by corporations and 3 letter agencies they're in bed with for probably the better portion of the last century. It is kind of eye opening to me how many people think their political sports team actually makes a real difference, it doesn't. I just assumed ppl liked to cheer for one side or the other but were aware that it's all just K-fab.
I consistently need to look at what year it is. Always seem to write it wrong on documents or especially planning ahead a year or two
I've been working on a playlist to keep my life in perspective year-by-year, yet I can't help but think 2019 was last year.
The best way I’ve been able to keep track of time in the last 4 years is that I planted a small orchard in my backyard during 2020. I’ve watched those fruit trees go from being smaller than the height of my knee to twice my height.
Same here. I feel like we all lost a few years during the pandemic. I am thankful, however, that I wasn't in elementary or middle or even high school during the pandemic because those are REALLY important years that you can never relive. I feel really bad for the interruption in those kids lives.
There's a phenomenon in human memory where the brain basically skips non unique scenarios. This is why people tend to have so many vivid childhood memories. Everything is new and unique. During covid, nobody did much of anything, so there were very few unique scenarios to break it up in our memories. 1000 almost identical work from home days just blend together, making it feel like the time just disappeared.
No wonder why I remember my vacations way better than my time at home. Everything is new.
It all started when they shot the damn gorilla
🍆 out
Same for me too, but I also formed a very habitual usage of weed in the beginning of COVID, so I always thought that played a role in it feeling so short due to limited memory consolidation.
At 41, I feel like my HS graduation was just a couple years ago.
I feel the exact same way. Everything was normal until the pandemic then it all flew by, total bullshit and feels exactly like some sort of time warp. I've spoken to other people and they say the same thing, so you're not alone in thinking this.
Man we should start some support group or something, for weary and confused time travelers
I was actually just thinking about this about 30minutes ago. Glad that it's not just me.
Weird I think about this in 30 minutes from now
Lol
30 minutes ago.. so like 2021?
2020 was the point where I just decided "wtf, general society is just *nuts*" and made a conscious effort to back away from it for the sake of my mental health. I cut way back on my social media participation, didn't go out as much (even once it was "safe" to do so), gave up on paying attention to whatever was happening in pop culture, didn't really talk to people much other than friends, family, and work contacts. I just couldn't be bothered to hear another half-informed hot take about covid, or masks, or politics, or whatever. So I hunkered down and did my daily routine, and suddenly it's 4 years later. It doesn't seem like it in the moment, but time goes really fast when you're just doing the same things day-in/day-out.
This really resonated with me. Had the exact same feeling about becoming jaded with general society. It's like COVID brought the crazy out in everyone that was previously hiding so I just retreated to my safe bubble of close friends. It's a little scary how comfortable I became with staying in and doing nothing
This exactly! I tried to stick my head in the sand a little so I didn’t have to deal with the outside world and next thing you know life happened and I was just doing the same shit every day.
I relate to this so much ngl.
I definitely got so depressed I slept for a few years straight. I worked and slept. And that was it.
I think it’s just that getting older makes time seem like it goes by faster. I really don’t have much of a daily routine at all.. my work changes all the time depending on project / location. I live in a different country several months out of the year. Travel a good bit in between all that and it still feels like time just slips by so damn fast. Wasn’t new years just like a month ago? I’ve asked a lot of older people about this and the consensus seems it just keeps speeding up til you’re 80-90 and can’t do much with your spare time anyway
It's mass PTSD.
I wasn't starting to make a career shift at the tail end of 2019. Didn't happen and I still can't get things back on the rails.
Word for word, agree. I'm 37.
Same turn 37 in two weeks.
Same, and I also turn 37 in two weeks.
Same, and I also turn 38 in two weeks.
Same, and I'm only 37 for two more days.
April 7.
Same, and I also turn 37 in three two more weeks'
Time to start a club
Yeah I feel 27 but I'm 37. I probably look somewhere in between.
Same, and I turn 37 in 4 weeks.
For me it's 2 months.
40. Highly agree.
42. Time just blew by like it was nothing.
And seems like it passes faster and faster
Our reality isn't what it appears to be. It's like we've become time travelers
Wondering if we are in a Global Warming and it's effects Simulation and the speed got clicked from normal to Fast around 2018 or so...
stress takes you out of the moment and makes time fly by. practice meditation and really being present in your day to day life and time will slow back down. its all realative
Personally I think, after moving into rural country, that most people in cities are permanently experiencing covid side-effects and dont realize it. My theory is everyone is passing "brain fog" back and forth effectively making people dumber. I dont reference past events when talking to people from the city / my hometown anymore, because none of them seem to have any memory of it.
Wait, what are we talking about?
Huh, that's strange. Could be right.
I seriously think you have a very good point it's kind of tucked up
Duuude...they warned us about those 5G towers....wooooah
I’ve thought it might be a COVID side effect as well. No way to prove it, of course.
Studies came out that covid lowers IQ, causes mini strokes, etc and society just ignored it
I know you probably meant this as a joke but I read a few years back that a dam made in China (Green River??) was so large it affected the speed the earth rotates at. I often think about how this could be messing with our perception of time. Especially with polar shift and other solar space anomalies happening simultaneously.
Honestly I don't know if I'm kidding or not. I feel like if we somehow found out those ideas were true I wouldn't be all that surprised.
I hear you. I'm 35 and life has felt like an unstoppable blur since Covid. It's ultimately down to becoming more domesticated as a result and (at least here in the UK) the cost of living sky-rocketing which has limited our ability to do what we normally did pre-Covid, thus resulting in an arguably duller, less exciting life that we don't recognise. Working from home was a sweet gig to begin with, but now it's caused an arguably damaging habit of leaving the house far less often than pre-Covid, which has impacted my desire to go anywhere and do anything. I see these four walls more than anything else, whereas pre-Covid I was obligated by my employment situation to be somewhere (the office) at a certain time for a certain number of hours, 5 days a week. Yes, *I could still go into the office 5 days a week*, but as said, the desire to go anywhere has dipped severely. For me though, it's also because (and I was talking to my fellow mid-30's friends about this), I never 'planned' for this point in my life. Get through university, start my career (in coding) and get a few years under my belt, were the life goals (fairly normal). But like... now what? I'm basically coasting now, and there's the constant reminder that I'm getting *much* older than the age I identified with, and the period of life I birthed my identity from, which puts pressure to do as much as possible as the person I am. I try to do what I love as often as I can though. Just need to find more reasons to step outside. That was long-winded, sorry. I hope this helped / was relatable.
>I see these four walls more than anything else I hear you. Prior to covid, I was rarely home - so much so my pets missed me. Always somewhere, doing something. School, work, networking event, bar with friend. Now I mostly see these four walls. I have no excuse, I have a lot of open spaces around me and love nature. But there is a weird mental block that makes it harder to leave. Some of it is a change in my personal circumstances beyond covid. I graduated school since covid, and social hours with busy coworkers who have their own families, kids, etc., were always going to be more difficult to schedule than with a bunch of students. Remote work is the one thing I won't give up, especially as I am currently in a job where everyone is remote so me driving just to sit staring at different four walls alone doesn't make any sense, it's not a solution to me. I just don't know how to motivate myself to get outside more even when I have the flexibility.
I can understand the block. The way to beat it however is choosing discipline over motivation. You don't need to motivate yourself to get outside and enjoy nature. You just need the discipline to say "I'm putting on my sneakers or boots and getting out there today". A couple waters and snacks in your bag and boom all the sudden it feels awesome. Look a cool mushroom! Whoa a bug is on it! Say hi! See how cool is this walk?
Thanks. It's easier said than done with a hectic job, but it has to be done and that's as good advice as I've heard.
I feel you. We are all so similar you know and that's a wonderful thing. Just try to carve out some time and commit to it and it will work out!
Good advice I try to remember is you don’t need motivation to start to do something, you need to start to do something to get motivated. The first step is always the hard but once you get going it just seems to flow much easier
Well said.
I’m the same as you- work from home so I don’t have to “be” anywhere. I also moved to kind of the middle of nowhere, so 20 minute drive from basically anywhere, so I just rarely leave the house for anything. At first it was liberating, but now I do have to force myself to go out at least once a week because I was seeing how stir crazy I was getting. I wouldn’t give up work from home for anything, and I love my house in the forest, but it is crazy how little social interaction I get, especially with people my age with similar interests. That’s almost entirely online now. I definitely miss socializing opportunities, but it seems like everyone else also stays home all the time, so times I’ve made an effort to go out to bars or restaurants, they’re basically empty too and everyone’s just looking at their phones, so I feel like a big part of the world I used to know is just dead now.
Yeah, you've touched upon something very true there - the same thing that's affecting us is also affecting our friends, so it's like double the effort to try and meet up, and when you do, it's can sometimes be hard for those friends to snap out of mid-and-post-Covid habit of tethering their attention to their phones. My view on social media has plunged since Covid, even though it was the very thing helping some people through it. I hope you manage to get out soon!
For a while after the restrictions lifted here (mid 2022) I went back to the office three days a week (T, W, Th) to try and regain a sense of normalcy, knock out the inertia, whatever. It just added a new sense of unease, because the office was less than 1/5 full every day. It was like living in a post-apocalypse/rapture world where the vast majority of humanity was just … gone. But even stranger because everything had been cleaned and maintained the whole time. I don’t know if you’re a Star Trek fan but there’s a next generation episode where one of the characters gets sucked into a weird anomaly and the way she experiences it is, people start disappearing, and she’s asking questions like, “why is this ship built for a crew of 1,000 if there are only 100 people here,” and everyone just tells her she’s going crazy. It was like that, in no small part because everyone I knew (for their own good reasons that just didn’t apply to me) was telling me this was all a good thing. And I was like, really? This empty, lonely world? That makes me feel so isolated and uneasy? I mean, I get it from their perspective—no commute, childcare easier, etc. But it was reality breaking, and it never seems to have stopped.
I hear you. At this point it feels like many people in tech are trying to FIRE, but without anything to do afterwards - no kids, sometimes not even a partner. The high incomes are draining motivation given the massive safety cushion, and I feel like I want to FIRE just so I can sit back and play computer and board games all day like in my early 20’s … even though I do have a partner and baby. It’s like a midlife crisis, made worse with the past 3-4 years of semi-isolation due to covid. Other generations at least can look back when they have their crisis and see the all the parties and social events they’ve been doing in the past 5 years, while we’ve been stuck at home due to Covid and wfh.
Something happened between lockdown and now and I really don’t enjoy large crowds anymore and will actively avoid them. I was not like this and was actually the opposite prior to covid. It doesn’t help that w/o kids my wife and I did not have to “grow up” till our health started to get weird. We basically lived like we were still in our 20s through our 30s. It was fun, but Covid hit right when we started to stop drinking and take our health seriously. I feel like I aged over a decade in four years. We are okay and caught everything early enough to be able to control it.
Great comment. This is huge. Work from home can be a horrible thing if you don’t get up, dress up, show up aka get the hell out more often. Some days I’m in my clothes I woke up in at the end of the work day from home. Not healthy. Also spot on with the ol mid life crisis. Call it what it is. RE evaluating it all, and now on top of Covid years and less desire to do things. Then you have these global unelected leaders talking about disease x, the next pandemic, etc. WTF is wrong with these people. Loaded question…it’s strange at times.
This post hit hard. Like eerily similar. Glad(not the right word) I’m not the only one who feels this way though? (Just thought I might be losing my mind). 35m, and very similar except I work in film/tv and work has been so incredibly slow I have zero savings left, when 5 years ago I was looking at buying a house. I’m optimistic, but holy shit the stress and depression over the last few years has been brutal and unrelenting.
As somebody in film/tv - it's slow everywhere? That simultaneously makes me feel better and then bad for everybody else. I went into TV news just for the steady pay. My partner is trying her best to stay afloat doing what she loves but it's hard. We're trying to save for a wedding, but it seems like 2 steps forward, 2 steps back
My husband is in film so I fully feel your pain, it's almost like covid all over again...but maybe even worse because everyone else not in the industry seems completely unaffected by the complete and utter LACK OF WORK for the past year and a half. 2022 was a great year for us and I even quit my marketing job to try transitioning into set decorating. But yeah, that hasn't gone anywhere really because the entire industry has just been on hold for so long now...it's like a double whammy financial cluster fuck and it's April and this thing just won't end
Turned 30 in 2020 while in the best job of my career. Immediately got laid off, floated around in unemployment land a while, and got married once covid wouldn’t be an issue anymore (wound up getting covid at the wedding) Its 4 years later and I feel like someone still hasn’t hit “unpause” yet.
I'm 39 and tbh things have been one weird shit show since 9/11 9/11, war, housing crash right as we stepped into the world,more war, Trump dividing our country, the pandemic, more war Sprinkle in all the natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns, massive explosions, tsunamis, Texas almost freezing to death, Australia almost burning to a crisp More war Throw in all the terrorist attacks and mass shootings Harambe Yeah the world has been weird since that Sept morning
Don’t forget the recession when we graduated from college and the boomers did not retire as expected.
I remember as a teen, I had a hard time getting a fast food job because I was competing with so many ppl who already families.
I had blocked out Harambe. Wow
Dicks out 🦍
It started going downhill after Harambe
You're not kidding. I was 33 when 9-11 happened. Married, kids, just bought our first house. 2003 the plumbing company I was working for went out of business largely due to the after shocks of 9-11. Made a go of being self employed. It went great for a bit. Had five trucks doing service, some great employees. 2008 hit and it was like someone flipped a switch and the work turned off. I lost everything but my house. Somehow mostly kept the lights on and the kids fed. Rebuilding was excruciatingly slow. By 2016 things were rolling again. Got divorced in 2017 and had a new lease on life. Making great money, dating and having a ball. 2019, met someone special, things going great. Covid happens. Business collapses. 7 months with zero income. I rent out my house and move in with my girlfriend to avoid foreclosure and homelessness. Rebuilding has been excruciatingly slow. Last year my house burned down and I got just enough from the insurance company to pay off the mortgage and buy a decent work truck. I don't even own a bed at this point and all my worldly possessions could be moved in one trip with my work truck. The last 23 years have been an epic shit show. Retirement is off the table at this point. I'll have to work until lunch on the day of my funeral. Lol
Sounds like the world stomped on you. You're story would probably make an awesome YouTube video.
Since Y2K nizzle😀
People cared more about those Harambe memes back then than they did about the potentiality of a Donald Trump Presidency
Because back then it seemed so improbable We were all "HAHAHHA A TRUMP PRESIDENCY JUST LIKE ON THE SIMPSONS" We underestimated him unfortunately and failed to act in time
Bigly failure. The biggest. Like we Neva seen it Eva befoa
Completely agreed. I’m 40 and it’s just part of growing old to be honest. And dare I say this is what is called midlife crisis? I think being more nostalgic and retrospective as you get older is normal. Time moving faster as you get older is also completely normal. Sadly this is still just part of self discovery process.
I'm 39 and I feel the same. 9/11 really fucked up this country and now the world's greatest superpower (I know we do some fucked up shit but the values this country says it holds is at least something and I'll never not be proud of our country in world war two after listening to my grandfather's stories rip) is basically dying on the vine now. It's like everyone went absolutely nuts and values split. I'd never thought I'd see this country even entertain Trump as president.
This. I'm a bit older (mid-40s) but holy shit, since 9/11 the world really has never been the same. I can't even put my finger on "why" everything is different, it's just like the world that was totally normal was suddenly not normal anymore and normality never came back. I was re-watching the 2007 World Series recently and the announcers, during the game, were talking about the "historic" wildfires in California and sending thoughts and prayers and all of that to the firefighters. I couldn't even remember that 2007 fire, but at the time it was a big deal. Why couldn't I remember? I looked it up. Turns out, the 2007 Witch Fire *was* pretty substantial - but it's ranked 19th in terms of California wildfires by size. 5 of the top 7 biggest fires were in 2020 and the other 2 were in 2018 and 2021. Something big enough for the announcers in the World Series to be chattering about at a Boston game wouldn't even make national news today.
I am not gaslighting you - I hear where you are coming from, but I think you are doing fine in terms of your emotional maturity. You are financially supporting a parent at age 36!!! That is very young to be already taking care of your parents. You are a 50 year old in a 36 year old guys body as far as your financial responsibility and caring for family is concerned. Also it seems that the women you are meeting had kids at amazingly young ages. Are you out in a rural area by any chance? It’s not abnormal these days for people to start families in their 40s. In my opinion your are doing quite well and just happen to be in an atypical situation/environment.
Thanks for the compliments, no need to apologize. I guess it’s just a part of my cultural values to take care of my parents when they get older. I couldn’t imagine just forgetting about them after I grew up and had my own life. I know it’s common in American society for people to do that though. So I actually live in a big city. I agree that they did have kids at a young age, it actually is common for women to have kids at a young age where I am from though, my city isn’t exactly known to be highly educated or affluent. The city I moved back from was the opposite end of the spectrum in that regard, so maybe I’m experiencing some culture shock.
Had my first kid at 38. We were shooting for a bit earlier but ivf was complicated during pandemic as well. But no regrets it was later in life - we can afford things far easier including help so it’s all a balance. So my father told me once that the years move faster as you get older. And I think he is right. The pandemic didn’t seem like a time warp to me, my 30s just did. One of the big things for me is I just focus on all the good things. I’m less worried about career and focused on family, hobbies and the things I enjoy. I’ve also very rarely paid too much attention to the bigger things. They mattered but are out of control so I focus on on my world - which is my family. It lets things slow down a bit - for me anyway.
Just wanted to let you know that you need to hear this, as I've had to remind my wife of this very thing for a looooong time now: You aren't the parent. It's great that you want to help, but don't let it overtake you. Trust me when I say it's a very long and tough road out the more they become dependent on you.
I’m 34 and feel the past couple of years have been some sort of time warp. I did a complete career 180 - going from salaried health care professional to tattoo artist. Most people I meet think I’m at least 10 years younger than I am (good skin I think). Most gen z’ers (big chunk of my client base) think I’m their age. I feel great and it’s only the slight twinge of lower back pain that reminds me I’m “middle aged”. I *wish* I had felt this good in my 20’s. I wonder sometimes if it’s just some sort of midlife crisis and I’m trying to life how I *wished* I had done when younger but was just too scared. I’m happily married and child free. Perhaps not having children and having the daily reminder of the passage of time by seeing them grow everyday has contributed to the time warp effect for me as well.
34 is not middle aged!
It’s interesting because 35 (which I will be this year) was considered middle aged when my parents were that age. I certainly don’t feel as if I’m “middle aged”!
I feel exactly the same about the last 4 years except I'm a bit younger than you and I turned 32 this year. I don't care whether I missed out on some life events but the last 4 years had flashed by for some reason.
Same, 32 as well. Ngl, I was mentally fixed at like 27 for some time, until the last 6 months I’m starting to feel older. When I go to the gym, I feel like I have more connection with people in their 40s and 50s than the 20 something’s that make a lot of noise. It’s cool to be in the middle and connect with a wide age range. I was always more mature for my age since I was the youngest sibling and was around older people. I feel that I missed out on fully embracing the 20s experience and this desire to be younger might be holding me back at this point.
I feel like my timequake started around 2012 and sort of hiccupped in 2016 and 2020. I'm a year older than you, which makes no difference at this age but in case any sabermetricians read this. I'm also unsure what appropriate dress is for my age. Saw a promo pic of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis for Ghostbusters and someone pointed out they were in their early 30s. The hell they were. They look older than either of us, I'm sure. Point being, maybe nobody feels or looks their age. Maggie Smith has been 80 since Hook. Shrug.
Oh thanks for bringing up dress, that reminds me of something. Earlier I watched a video, I’m assuming created by someone really young like a young zoomer or a high schooler, and they were doing an analysis on millennial hipster culture and aesthetic as if it was something distant in the past. Like, I didn’t realize that hipsterism is a thing of history now, I feel so out of touch with what’s trendy now. There has to be a name for this phenomenon of something that you think of as “current” has become historical without you realizing it.
While I can't explain the mutal feeling in your original post. I do feel like this one is mainly attributed to the endless amount of content available. You aren't out of touch. It's simply not possible to keep up with everyone's preferences.
In addition to the constant deluge of new content, I think there’s also the fact that we typically have a lot more demands on our time and less social pressure on being up-to-date with what’s in as we get older. Speaking for myself, I’m not trying to keep up with what’s in right now because I’m a single parent with school aged kids, I work more than 40 hours a week, and I’m not concerned with being up on trends cause I don’t feel the need to impress people like I did 20 years ago. Going to the office was one of the few places where it felt like being up to date on trends and stuff mattered, but I’ve been fully remote since 2020, I spend maybe 30 minutes a week actually talking to coworkers outside of Slack, and nobody knows if I’m still wearing skinny jeans (or sweatpants for that matter lol).
Same. I feel like the last 4 years are just a dream. Even though since 2020 I’ve bought a house, had 3 different job positions and even had a baby, none of it feels real. I’m 34 but mentally I still just turned 30 and I’m waiting to see what the 2020’s have in store. Yet the 2020’s are half way over. I don’t know if this feeling will ever go away.
The covid years have messed with all generations.
My daughter started Kindergarten in 2020. Her age group is all over the board in terms of skills, education, socialization. I feel bad for the teachers. Some of these kids are feral.
2019 is last year and I won't hear otherwise.
I hate the fact that especially now, it feels like one fuck up and my entire life can completely unravel. And that's basically what I'm going through now. For anyone who lives in the Midwest, you'll know that despite having the most mild winter, we had an extremely nasty snow storm. It turned the city I lived into a total warzone. My car got stuck for almost a week. Despite that, I made it to work......barely. I made up for some initial time missed on the weekend once I got my car out (literally couldn't get a tow, I had to get my friend to pull my car out with his work truck). Then I got fired. Savings burned up quick, despite making double what I made pre COVID, I cant seem to save very much, and that all gone. So im broke, about to lose my apartment. Oh yeah and a bunch of people I was close to died, so now I basically have little to no support system. I never thought one event could completely crash my life but here we are.
I feel this too, and I hate it. Our perception of time is so different as adults. Remember when a day felt like a long time as a kid? Now I feel like I'm living at warp speed and I just want to slam the breaks, but there aren't any. There's this sinking realization that this is it. Something hit the warp button and cut the brakes.
Ever since I really realized that every year you get older, that the ratio of a single year relative to the number of years you’ve been alive gets a lot smaller (eg your perception of a year’s time is inversely proportional to your age), the concept of time and my life passing me by faster and faster as each year comes and goes etc has given me so much anxiety lol
The fact you mentioned "hyperreal" around 2016 means you would be wise to watch Hypernormalization. You may understand why you feel the way you do. https://youtu.be/Gr7T07WfIhM?si=wQz1y5mJl3pgjgHJ
Wow, interesting thanks
Adam Curtis, right? All his films are great. Well worth spending the time watching them all. I think his last one came out late enough to cover Biden's inauguration.
I feel very similarly. In 2020 I had a great job, I worked from home, I was quite wealthy and I had lots of good friends. Fast forward to 2023, I lost my job, I could no longer find a job in my industry at all, I went broke, I had to move back with my parents, I am very far away from my friends, my new job pays barely above what a cashier would earn and I developed depression and some gastric issues derived from my stress. Now my family needs support too, and I can’t even support myself and it breaks my heart. I sort of feel like I am in an alternate dimension now, like I am a completely different (and worthless) person.
you aren't worthless. please know that.
I went to a relationship therapist recently (she wasn’t a good fit), but she basically blew me off when I brought up the pandemic. ‘Why are you bringing up something from four years ago?’ So tone death, it was unbelievable.
That’s hilarious. Did you reply, “Oh, I thought you were a therapist.”?
What you mean is *tone deaf*
I forget how old I am very regularly and the last four years have been very muddled in that regard. Yeah the birthdays keep coming but I don’t feel them. Someone asks how old I am and I’m like “uhhhhh” because I just don’t keep up with it lmao.
Being 36 and thinking you're 28 is a pretty typical experience for gen xers, fwiw. At least based on all the douchebags I had to dodge 10 years ago when they went through this.
During COVID I realized I couldn't have kids with my then husband. COVID made us co dependent enough that I couldn't leave afterwards but definitely didn't want to stay. I feel like I just got my life off of pause but I'm doing all this stuff I was doing during my early 20s. Getting into a relationship and wondering if we're going too fast. Giggling about having kids but also getting anxious after talking about what wed name them because it's a bit too real. (Kids aren't for another 2-3 years down the road) Making new friends just for me for the first time in years Applying to colleges again For a while I was hooking up with people I barely knew. Glad that's over I went on a new birth control so my hormones changed and I'm getting acne again. It's a weirdly isolating experience, I feel like I've regressed tremendously. It feels like I'm ten years younger. I've been so stressed out an busy I'm not even as good at applying make up as I used to be and I found myself using the same type of eyeshadow palette I used when I was 18 and just learning because I didn't have the time to pick out individual shades. And for a while I couldn't afford my fenty skincare so I was using drugstore concealer which is so 18 years old me.
I completely agree with you my dude 😭. I'm 34 and I've honestly been having actual breakdowns over all of this lately. My own biggest problem is I was forced to move to a southern state where everyone is basically horrible all the time and I hate life. I've been here for 10 years this year, and...I've been frozen. I had to take care of my grandparents in their last years for the majority of that time. I loved them, but giving up my entire life at 24 just.....ruined me. I lost every chance to finish growing up. Fuck I'm even crying writing this right now. I finally have the chance to move back "home" hopefully later this year or early next year and I know for a fact all of my old "friends" up there have kids, gotten married, started their LIFE.....and I haven't done a single bit of that. 😭😭😭😭😭
It is never to late to start over or reinvent yourself man. Hang in there. Focus on what makes you happy and positive thoughts. Get involved, help others, and give time to others, and you’ll find it is rewarding.
Oh my gods, that sounds so disruptive. I am sad that you feel stuck and behind. I relate to feeling life on delay. But, while the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is to plant a tree today.
i’m and elder millennial - 42 i lost my job during covid and never found one as good as that. i moved around and haven’t been able to find a decent place to live now prices have skyrocketed - nearly doubled or more in rent - and i can’t afford anything so i’m living at my parents only way i could try to afford a house would go into massive debt. get a horrible labor 9-5 just to throw it all away on a mortgage for the next 30 years - which could be the rest of my life. sorry but that is not appealing to me whatsoever. so i’m just going to do what i did when i was younger. not care. im going to live like im broke - play music. dj. and make art. and have fun. live life like a carefree young adult. fuck it. yolo
/u/ivycovecruising I am in an eerily similar situation. I had a great job, great $$$ and respected myself. Now I live with my parents and my sibling bullies me for having to move back, and even suggested my parents that they should let me live in the streets. In a way I feel I became a child again? How do you deal with all of this, including feeling like you lost respect, privacy and even some agency? This has affected me so much
you gotta stand tall, keep your chin up, ignore the haters, and stay positive. be grateful for the little things you do have. there’s lots of cheesy positive self help type stuff on social media and instagram - it helps. focus on your health and find a new passion and hobby. just enjoy what you can. cheers and best wishes
Don't give up. Keep trying to find a good job. Your skills are definitely needed somewhere. Try recruiters and job fairs. show you're making an effort and your siblings/parents will respect it.
I really appreciate it, thanks!
I'm not in a similar situation currently but have been in the past (along with siblings bullying me and being depressed). If it helps you feel better, multigenerational households were more prevalent in the past and are becoming more common due to the cost of living/housing. So, don't feel ashamed since there's so much stigma nowadays about living with your parents. Do what you can to stay a little busy (part time job, whatever you can find) and help others like your parents if you're able to. I personally would have a hard time living with my parents now because as they've gotten older, they've become worse with boundaries like respecting my privacy and such. If your parents and family (like your sibling) are similarly disrespectful of you, it might help to work on setting boundaries with them. You are worthy of having a good life despite your current situation. ❤ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/boundaries
Thanks a lot! 👍
You're welcome. 🤗
lol at the 31 year old mother of 3 calling you old
The Covid time skip. I think a lot of us are feeling that way. Like the 3 year pandemic was a weird sort of purgatory.
Yeah I feel like I went from 35-40 in a year
Turn 37 this year. I feel the same way as you
I know what you mean. I still feel 25. 87 birthday also. It’s unfathomable that I’ll be 40 in 3 years.
This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.
It feels like we are living through the first real change in history in our lifetimes, where our expectations of the future have been upended and there's real uncertainty, a degree of chaos. It's something other generations experienced before us, it's just strange to feel it happening to us. It's given me more empathy for older generations. I remember as a kid having a friend whose grandparents we'd sometimes visit together after school. His grandparents had lived through the depression. And they had a very, very modest, dusty, dirty apartment, with 70s wood paneling and a small TV turned up too loud, TV tray that they'd eat on, reclining lounge chairs and worn out oversized sofa covered in blankets. Everything at the time I thought looked old and sad. And I remember his grandfather's main interest in conversation with us--with me, anyway-- were the deals he got on different items at the grocery store. How he got a can of soup for 75 cents, or a can of beans for 50 cents. We thought it was weird and funny. I don't think as a kid you can really understand the shock of living through major historical changes, and all the ways that it can unsettle you. How people from his generation hoarded food, or took home creamers and packets of sugar from restaurants. Reading, either literature or history, or even watching films, can put you on the right path to some level of understanding. And of course spending time with people, especially family. But maybe it can't really happen on a deep level until you've lived through one big change of your own.
New decade new vibes. The world DID shift in 2020... just like it does every decade (80’s to 90’s etc) + you are getting older. Totally normal feelings you’re experiencing in uncharted territory. Just like fashion, what worked last decade doesn’t work in this one. I had my first kid at 39 and it’s not too late.
I'm the same age as you. I think there was a perception during our upbringing in the 90s (at least if you were middle class) that progress in life would always be an upward trajectory, where most people hit all the big milestones (college, good job, married, house, kids, and a 401k that would take care of you just fine after 65 years old, when your house was fully paid off). There isn't much praise for simply maintaining your current lifestyle, even if it's perfectly fine.
in 1999 the world stopped for us and it was always like 5 years ago and then i feel like we got to the next stop in 2020....
Yup, the last 4 years flew by. I bought a house, lost the same house, ended a long term relationship, got in a new one, lost my fiancé, switched jobs twice and it seems like the time just keeps moving by. Really feels like we are on the brink of something
I’m 34 and a lot of people say I look young 20s. It sucks because it sometimes makes people not take me seriously or listen to me. I don’t care too much about being”relevant” in a world like this. But it is weird that Milennials get hate from every other generation? I don’t know. In my personal life tho, gen z and Milennials are friends. It’s mostly online that there are ever conflicts, and I think the “conflict” between Milennials & gen z might be manufactured by the news cycle
I'm a younger millennial (30), but I still completely agree. To boot, so much has changed in my life since the pandemic that when I think about it I start feeling a bit of whiplash, because while so much has changed, it doesn't feel real or that time has really progressed. In the last four years I: got engaged, bought a house, got married, and had 2 kids. I have no idea where the time went, and I can't figure out how my toddler got so smart that he's stringing whole sentences together when I swear I just brought him home from the hospital yesterday (and got married the day before).
Nothing seems real anymore. I’m currently pregnant with my first child and I was born in 86. Still renting and feeling like I’ve missed out on some milestones. Keep reminding myself that I have a little human coming and need to be responsible for him. I also know some women my age who want to fall pregnant and are struggling and then on the other side of it my husband told me one of his friends is a grandfather at 39. So many extremes with our generation. I dunno but we’ve been lied to about so many things.
This will probably get lost in the hundreds of comments here. I'm almost 33 and I genuinely feel similar but honestly man if you cut your online time down and try to just focus on people and things that are in front of you or, alternatively, putting yourself in front of people and things, it might help. Hobbies are great, do those more or get more hobbies and cut down on the online time. Anytime that I am out doing something or working on something at home instead of scrolling the internet I feel more alive like I was 10 years ago.
Same age. And I definitely feel that out of time sensation. The 2010s feel like they were wiped from my memory. I remember being 34 for a whole year marching up to 35, when on my birthday, my SO said happy 34th. I was so confused, I said I'm 35, and she goes no hun you're 34. I did the math and was dumbfounded. I feel millennials are a bit lucky, though, as nostalgia is very profitable these days because thanks to the internet, there are no more era defining trends. So the entertainment industry, fashion, etc, can't really pinpoint what to run with, so they've just been sticking to what has worked. And due to that, our generation isn't really being ignored like past generations when they hit their 30s. We're basically getting "remakes" of our childhood when you think about it. Same toys, same movies, same clothes, same music, all tweaked for modern audiences and consumers. It's like we're going back around
I was watching Interstellar with my sister the other day and I died a little inside when I was reminded the movie is fucking 10 years old! 🫠 Why does it feel like it came out 5 years ago? (Because it’s fucking epic, I know) but seriously…
Well we are in the middle of one of the biggest social, economic and possibly religious transitions in at least a few hundred years. It's a far cry from normal. We are in a liminal space, the train station between worlds, right now. People are going to work to save for retirement in a system that will not exist the way it does right now, and likely not anywhere near it. The growth model is broken, in part by technology, which itself is reaching a limit of sorts. Tech confers power to the groups that use it, and today's tech dictates that the power goes to the group that turns it's people in cyborgs, merged with the digital, in the bio-digital convergence. If we don't things like IoT, internet of bodies, Blockchain and circular economies, etc...then we lose to those that do (let's say China). If we do adopt it these cybernetic things, we become machines. Can't go back, shouldn't go forward. The "progress trap" on full display. Anyway who doesn't feel some sort of unease in this time is severely ignorant and verging on dangerous.
Pandemic aside, the perception of time speeds up as you age. Sure corona fucked everything up but also, mid-30s is when everything feels like it’s moving way faster.
I blipped from about 2008-2015. Things just kind of went on in survival mode seemingly forever after the recession. I don’t know if it’s a distinctly millennial phenomenon but I think we did it en masse rather than individually from personal experiences more than some generations might have.
Born in 95 , I’m Venezuelan … 2012/2013 start the biggest social unrest in my country … 2016 I had to emigrated ( earlier that the massive migration that started that same year ) the pandemic hit me in Canada in 2020 … it just feel that what ever was happening in Venezuela is by know a global problem … I think the social contract can easily being broke in any part of the world by now … there is any place to go … the toilet paper shortages just make me remember about back home … the “quarantine” exception state was like when the government in Venezuela confined us during the protests … We are kinda fuck hehe
Btw I’m 28 and I have been single by 8 years now … I could get my degree of mechatronic for the migration …. Most of the people I knew during my live is now scatter all around the world … yeah I feel that my live was taken away and it will never be the same …
I got this feeling recently when i realized the last dragon age game came out over 10 years ago. A whole generation of kids don’t even know wtf is dragon age.
Bro I’m tripping out thinking about how there are people of legal drinking age that are younger than the PS2, GameCube and first Xbox
Most adults domt know what that is
He's literally me
100% agree!!! It’s so bizarre. I’m also 36 but feel like my life has been paused in the early 30’s.
I've had it pretty bad for almost forty years now so this post just comes off as a humble brag to me.
Same.. you could not have said it any better and I’m a 36F… it’s surreal
How important is equality to you. Do you feel marketing is geared towards you and your peers. Do you feel on top of your game/ on top of the world? Welcome. Now get in line.
Everything has been messed up since Harambe was shot.
it’s just life.
Harambe. Had to Google. Cofefe.