15 Things That Keep You Broke & Tired (Gen-Z/Millennial Edition)

Every generation is raised by one that's already outdated. Gen Z and Millennials are dealing with different challenges than any other previous generation, and this is causing massive spikes in anxiety and stress. So let's break it all down, shall we? Here are 15 challenges that exhaust this generation. Welcome to Alux.

First up, perfectionism. Perfect life, perfect student, perfect family. The word "perfect" is a plague because the pursuit of perfectionism can only lead to the dissatisfaction of not being able to achieve it. Perfectionism is just procrastination disguised as productivity. Your life doesn't need to be perfect because perfect changes faster than you're able to catch up. As long as you're in pursuit of something, you'll never be happy, and you'll always be tired.

Number two, digital burnout. Surrounded by screens and blue light, we went from watching 20-minute commercials on TV midway through a movie to now watching two ads between 15-second pieces of content. This is exhausting. Your brain thinks it's consuming content, but actually, it doesn't because you don't have time to digest it. It's like watching food pass by but not eating any of it—you're still starving. Everyone is posting their best days on social media. The news monetizes your fear and anxiety, and the algorithm is forcing you to post 24 times a day to stay relevant on each platform. Your life changes once you realize it's that damn phone that makes you miserable.

Number three, impostor syndrome. Everyone is faking it, but you don't know it yet. So, in an attempt to appear something else, you fake it as well, but it doesn't feel right. You're a completely different person outside of the house compared to who you are in your room when no one's looking. This gap between who you present yourself to be and who you really are has begun to feel a lot like work. Every time you go out, the mask is hard to carry.

Number four, financial stress overload. If you're between 20 and 35, most likely you're struggling financially. Actually, you're not struggling; you just gave up on the big suits in life, like buying a house, but we'll talk about that in a minute. You're not living paycheck to paycheck; you're living holiday to medical emergency. Through no fault of your own, things are getting more and more expensive. The only things you can still afford are actually things designed to make you poor and others rich. But you do pay $6 for a coffee and $14 for a sandwich because it makes you feel better. By the way, things have gotten so crazy that restaurants are actually losing money on a $14 sandwich. Even funnier is how you can barely afford to take care of yourself, but they still ask you to tip because, hey, they can't afford to pay their servers a living wage.

Number five, they lack proper guidance. Look, the role models out there are all screwed up. Most rich women you see in the media are either reality TV stars, OnlyFans creators, or women who divorced rich men. It's true. None of the top 10 richest women in the world earned their fortune or are self-made. It's either inheritance or through divorce. Then the men—or better said, the lack thereof. This is a generation without a proper father figure because their dads were always working and emotionally unavailable. This is a generation who just had to figure it all out on their own. They only received some sort of guidance once they got to high school, and if you think about it, that's the main reason why this generation seems to be trapped around that era, from playing video games to maintaining a Harry Potter addiction.

Fifteen years later, we have aged males that have not matured both mentally and physically. Weak high testosterone, which is associated with adult males, is now labeled as toxic masculinity. Ironically, those same behaviors are praised when displayed in women. The left has zero male role models, and the ones on the right are labeled as crazy. This is why this generation needs guidance more than ever, and why we built the Alux app to solve this problem specifically.

If you want to stop being treated like a domesticated animal where you're fed and cared for by humans for the financial benefit of the rich, go to alux.com/slapp, try it out for one or two days, and just see what happens. You'll never want to go back.

Number six, flex culture fatigue and overconsumption. Everybody's flexing, and nobody is happy. We pretend we're happy, but in reality, we're a sad generation with lots of happy pictures. In your childhood photos, you smiled because they prompted you to say "cheese." But that wasn't a natural smile. Twenty to thirty years later, nothing has changed. Everywhere you look, billboards advertise the latest fashion. Every three months, new trends sweep through social media: quiet luxury, mob wife aesthetic, minimalism, maximalism, earth tones, Coachella nostalgia. They're all marketing you need to spend money to keep up with them. Social media is designed to make you hate where you are, maybe even who you are. And then there's FOMO. It feels like everyone is doing something except for you. This person's traveling on the other side of the world; this one's at a festival; this one is at the beach. It feels like you should be doing all of that at the same time, but here you are not doing any of those things.

You're free because there are too many options. The cost of opportunity is too high; picking just one of them means you lose your chance to do all the other ones. FOMO keeps you locked in and miserable. Even if you're doing something great, you're still a loser because you didn't do all of the rest. It's toxic.

Number eight, quarter-life crisis. The generations before had a midlife crisis, right? For the first time in history, though, this generation is dealing with a quarter-life crisis. If you're in your 20s, you're probably not sure what you want to do with your life. You're unsure of the path that you've chosen. You're second-guessing your life path because you're not the one who picked it.

You want that sports car Boomers used to get in their 50s, and you want to move and live on the beach. Just that Florida has been replaced by Bali or Barcelona. But despite all of that, we still feel alone, which brings us to social isolation and a lack of acceptance. You don't feel like you belong. Sure, you've got friends, but not best friends, and it hurts knowing that you're not the best friend of your best friend. You think you're different, but different means you don't fit in with everyone else. It's easier to find escapism online than to look around and search for a new crew.

Number 10, the realization that you're not actually good at anything specific. It's all surface-level. Everything seems smart from a distance, but you know you're not. If you were really that smart, you wouldn't be dealing with all the issues you're facing. This is because you spend more time consuming than you actually do making things. You would think this would make you smart, in theory, but most of you can't recall what was the number three item on this list.

Number 11, tech addiction. You're probably checking your phone right now. If you're not watching or listening to this on your device, you might pick up that phone to check the time, and before you know it, you're already doomscrolling through. There is too much tech, too much content. Your brain has been programmed to think that you'll miss a great video or some big news if you don't check it constantly. The antidote is time in nature. If you don't think you're addicted to technology, ask yourself: when was the last time you spent three days without your phone?

Number 12, technological progress might render effort irrelevant. Not only do you lack skill depth because you don't have enough time to put in your 10,000 hours to become a master at your craft, but technology is making progress happen way too fast. AI is designing better websites than you are. What's the point of learning to write code when, six months from now, you'll talk naturally to an AI agent and get it to do what you want? This perceived barrier keeps this generation from committing; it takes a decade to master a platform, and by the time you master it, 100 other platforms have already come and gone.

Number 13, oversexualized environments and hookup culture. Everywhere you look, there it is. It's always been like this, but it's never been available at this kind of volume nonstop. The algorithm rewards it, so there's an economic incentive to follow through. This is why 16-year-olds look like they're in their early 30s. "You look mature for your age" isn't a compliment; okay, it's creepy. DMs, subscriptions, thirst traps—the culture in general is basically softcore pornography. Remember, everything in the world is about sex, except sex; sex is about power.

Number 14, instant gratification and available stimulation. You want to feel a certain way? Well, there's an app for that, or you could get a substance through an app that makes you feel that way. Everything is just way too available; there's no effort to get the reward, so the perceived value diminishes with every hit. Contrary to other generations, this one doesn't value delayed gratification because the government has robbed them of the future. Why delay gratification and save money when inflation is 10% per year? Why delay buying whatever it is you want when in 12 months, it's going to be way more expensive? Why delay anything? Why plan long-term when the world is already so screwed up?

You'd think these are valid points, but the alternative—the YOLO lifestyle—doesn't get you much either. And by the way, you can tell how old we are because we used "YOLO" as slang, right? And we know how old you are, okay, because you understood it.

Now, the only thing being delayed here is number 15: major life events. You say you don't want to get married; you say you're not ready for a kid; you say you'll do all of that when you get things figured out. But the problem is you're not actively working at figuring things out. So how exactly is that supposed to work?

Eighty-one percent of adults with student loans say they've had to delay key life milestones. Think about it: you're barely considered an adult, and already you're in debt. Someone else owns the fruits of your future labor. You might not like it, but it's economic slavery, and this generation suffers because of it. Even if you are debt-free, the economic uncertainty, the fluctuations in the workplace—here's just a short list of the companies that had massive layoffs in just the first two months of 2024.

How are you supposed to start a family when it costs around $20,000 a year to raise a middle-class child? These ideas keep this generation up at night. Which one of these do you think is the biggest contributor to the current state of this generation? Let us know in the comments, and do let us know if you have a hot take on what we should be adding to this list.

And since you watched it until the very end, here's your bonus: humanity will shift in their lifetime. These generations grew up with the internet. AI just became a thing. Mix those two together, and humanity will look radically different. They will age differently; therapies and physical health are prized in this new world. Humanoid robots aren't far away into the future. This is by far the most exciting period yet in human history. You have the opportunity to become anything you want, but not everything. So pick carefully. Aluxir, and if you agree, write the word "anything" in the comments.