I’m sick of boomers telling gen Z and millennials to “suck it up” when we complain that a $60k or less salary shouldn’t force us to live mediocre lives living “frugally” like with roommates, not eating out, not going out for drinks, no vacations.
Like no, we NEED these things just to survive this capitalistic hellscape boomers have allowed to happen for the benefit of the 1%.
We should guarantee EVERYONE be able to afford their own housing, a month of vacation every year, free healthcare, student loans paid off, AT A MINIMUM.
Gen Z should not have to struggle just because older generations struggled. Give everything to us NOW.
You’re not wrong that the system is expensive, tilted, and often unfair. Housing is harder. Healthcare is a mess. Wages haven’t kept up. Those facts are real.
But here’s where your thinking quietly becomes dangerous to you.
You’ve taken real structural problems… and turned them into a story that strips you of agency.
You’re not talking about policy anymore.
You’re talking about entitlement — and entitlement always creates bitterness, paralysis, and learned helplessness.
“Give everything to us now” sounds powerful.
It also quietly says: My life can’t start until someone else fixes it for me.
And that belief will keep you stuck far longer than rent prices ever will.
No generation has gotten a pain-free path. None.
Every single one has had to make tradeoffs, live smaller than they wanted, delay gratification, and build slowly while the world changed around them.
That isn’t cruelty.
That’s adulthood.
Roommates. Budgeting. Saying no to some fun. Working your way up. Living below your ideal while you build toward it — those aren’t oppression. They’re the on-ramp to independence.
You don’t become free by demanding comfort.
You become free by building capacity.
And here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud:
A life that depends on being rescued will always feel fragile.
A life you build — even slowly — becomes stable, confident, and yours.
You deserve dignity.
You deserve safety.
You deserve a fair shot.
But you are not owed a pain-free launch.
Your power starts the moment you stop waiting for the world to hand you a better life — and start constructing one brick at a time, even in an unfair system.
Not because it’s fair.
Because it’s how people