10 Things People Born In The 70s And 80s Understand About Life That Gen Z Is Still Learning
Lyudmila2509 | Shutterstock Born around the cusp between millennial and Gen X territory, Xennials have the best of both worlds.
With analog childhoods and technological adulthoods, they reaped all the best traits, skills, and life lessons as kids to make the most of an ever-evolving world today. Compared to younger peers, like Gen Z, who have had technology from a young age and grown dependent on convenience and stimulation over time, people born in the 70s and 80s understand different things about life that Gen Z is still learning.
Here are 10 things people born in the 70s and 80s understand about life that Gen Z is still learning
1. Not everything easy is right
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While young people are growing up in a culture of convenience, where everyone wants their lives to be easier and more comfortable, sometimes, we can only grow in periods of challenge and discomfort. If we don't step outside of our comfort zones or put more effort into something we find difficult, we'll be stagnant forever.
Especially for people born in the 70s and 80s, who spent their childhoods alone without constant stimulation and entertainment, they had no choice but to learn this truth the hard way. They played outside alone and had to manage issues. They babysat younger siblings without parental guidance. They worked through difficult situations, instead of immediately resorting to an adult or a phone for help.
2. Nobody is coming to save you
Most Gen Zers can't help but rely on their parents for financial support or turn to their phones to supplement the connection they're missing and the loneliness they're experiencing. But rarely in life is someone or something coming to save you. You can only rely on other people for so long, especially if you're refusing to take accountability for the direction of your own life.
Older generations, who spent a lot of time alone as kids and matured early in life, know this better than anyone. If they didn't do it, nobody would have. Whether that's progressing in their careers or learning from mundane mistakes, they know that they're the only person truly in control of their own life.
3. Your job doesn't need to be your life's purpose
According to an Ernst & Young Global Limited study, most Gen Zers are far more concerned with having a fulfilling career than they are with making money. However, when your job becomes your primary source of meaning or purpose, it cultivates a lot more stress that an individual can rarely control. It weaves into their self-worth, so much so that when something goes wrong or they make a mistake, they feel entirely destabilized.
However, Gen Xers are much less driven by purpose-driven work. Of course, in an ideal world, everyone could do something they truly enjoy and feel excited to wake up every day to work for, but in our world, it's not possible. These older generations care about making money and feeling secure enough to spend time with their families and appreciate the things that really matter to them, rather than the validation and success of a prestigious career.
4. Not all relationships last forever
Many life lessons, like the reality of outgrowing relationships or the importance of humility, don't happen right away. Someone's first step into adulthood after moving out of their parents' house doesn't immediately ingrain these beliefs and lessons in their heads. They take time and experience to ingest.
So, it's not all that surprising that for young people, who are finding it difficult to not only accept challenges in their lives from the comfort of a digital world, but also to get out of their comfort zones socially, that realizations about the fragility of their relationships are still vague. Their friendship breakups still feel defining, and early romantic encounters are hard to let go.
Of course, everyone is different and has their unique life experiences, but for Gen Xers and Xennials, this is something they've needed to come to terms with.
5. Growth requires discomfort
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As a study from Psychological Science explains, opening yourself up to challenges and leaning into discomfort can open your mind to new ideas. You broaden your horizons and learn new things about yourself, as well as develop an aura of resilience that helps you to personally grow as a human.
For young people today, who have had their needs and comfort catered to by parents and mindless entertainment, it's a lot harder to accept that growing needs to be difficult. It doesn't always have to be, as long as you're comfortable with uncertainty and regulating yourself in the face of an unfamiliar situation.
6. Quiet time isn't something to avoid
With a chronic sense of being behind or running out of time, Gen Zers are constantly clinging to busyness to feel secure. They need the most friends, the busiest social calendar, as well as a million things to boast about on social media, all to fill the internal void of self-assuredness they've created through comparison.
However, slowing down and spending time in your own company is essential to well-being. Ironically, with the right attitude, it's exactly what this generation needs to heal their loneliness. Older generations, who have grown up practicing solitude and mediating their own boredom, know this. But younger ones, in an age of hyper-stimulation, are still learning.
7. Life is unfair and uncertain
With growing rates of narcissism in our culture, many younger generations can't help but adopt a sense of entitlement that affects how "deserving" they feel. They have skewed ideas of what fairness actually means, because they feel entitled to and deserving of convenience and ease all the time, even if it comes at the expense of someone else.
People born in the 70s and 80s have developed a different kind of humility and resilience from facing hardship head-on. They know that life is inherently unfair. Even the most kind, deserving people in the world still face challenges.
8. Relationships take effort
Even though our friendships and romantic relationships shouldn't always feel like an obligation that drains our energy, we do need to put effort into them. They take work, but they shouldn't always feel like work.
Whether that's inconveniencing ourselves to help someone or leaning into hard conversations for the sake of conflict resolution, older generations know, typically through life experience, that you can't overlook this effort if you want a healthy relationship. You can't expect everyone to love and support you if there's not some kind of reciprocity.
9. Most people don't know what they're doing
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Even though it's easy to look upward at older, wiser, more successful people and assume they know what they're doing, people who are actually in these situations know better than anyone that it's all a facade. Even people born in the 70s and 80s who are in leadership roles at work and seem to know exactly who they are struggle with self-doubt and uncertainty, even if they don't show it.
Young people put a lot of stress and shame on their plates by comparing themselves to people who seem to have it all together on the outside, but in reality, most people are making up the rules as they go.
10. Money buys freedom
Even if all the money in the world can't fix someone's unhappiness, the truth is that it can buy an irreplaceable kind of comfort and freedom. As a 2010 study explains, having more than $75K often buys a sense of financial comfort and security that boosts happiness, but it's actually freedom.
The more money you have saved and the closer you get to financial freedom, the easier it will be to make decisions that actually empower you. You don't have to tolerate jobs you hate; instead, you can take time off and you can say yes to things.
You can afford unexpected expenses and invest in things you enjoy. It's all of these things that the average Gen Zers trade in daily to create experiences right now and follow trends that don't end up giving them more than five minutes of joy.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a senior editorial strategist with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
