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Millennials and Zoomers can sympathize very well on one common theme: anxiety.
We eat it for breakfast & lunch, and by dinner we're on our third helping before passing out from exhaustion or escaping reality with various vices.
I'm not sure if my parents see it from that lens. They're boomers, whom I love very much. Not old, rich boomers in the general "internet" sense of the word. But boomers, nonetheless. Their core attributes and values are different. They've known a different kind of stress. Unlike myself, a millennial, whose stress is always connected to everything always.
Now, I understand I'm generalizing. That's not to say there isn't a spectrum of anxiety, on which everyone of every generation falls differently in their own unique way. I am not speaking necessarily to that; rather, I'm trying to organize some of my personal observations and experience. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying.
I respect all those perspectives and I encourage individuality for all that it is worth. Individuals make up a collective community, and the community thrives only with those many different pieces of team-building. Stress is human, part of our compass with which to navigate reality. It affects us individually and collectively. We must acknowledge that together.
During a global pandemic, this extends far beyond the boundaries of age and generation. It shifts (or should, at least) our thinking into what's best for the greater good. All people. Humanity. And that's not something easily understood in modern-day America. There's a little bit of ego in our subconscious programming; a little voice (that we never intentionally put there) saying "me first."
I know Americans aren't the only one with this problem, but as an American, I recognize we are the loudest about it.
Regardless, anxiety is something humans are learning to adapt with in forms they've never had to experience. The anxieties of our parents, grandparents, and ancestors are not those of digital natives. Especially right now.
That is not to say that other generations didn't experience anxiety attacks. They had their own forms of PTSD-inducing events. Hell, that's where our survival instincts come from.
All I'm proposing is that the circumstances have changed. And they've changed in ways that digital immigrants have trouble understanding, even when it directly affects them.
I'd like to offer some advice that I've found beneficial to my own mental health. To skip the following anecdotal information, feel free to scroll down to the bottom section "3 Tips."
Anxiety attacks have become more and more frequent upon our society and its progress. Time has sped up. Expectations have quadrupled. The phrase "life's purpose" has new entirely context wrapped around it. Millennials and Zoomers see this differently than the Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers (and there's nothing wrong with that).
It grows with technology, which probably also says something about its roots. But this is problematic.
"When we hand down our habits of thought to our children, through the examples we set, the schooling we provide, and the media we use, we hand down as well the modifications in the structure of the brain." - Nicolas Carr, The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains
Do you see it? The giant gap between generational thought is a proponent of how the internet continues to shape our brains. Most millennials and certainly all zoomers have grown up in a world of thought that their parents have yet to fully understand.
See, we are a generation born into it. We grew up with deep-rooted anxiety. We've seen four, five, six significant global disasters in our lifetime alone. It started in schools with grades and numbers and now as adults with finance (though never taught the latter in school).
Listen… we all feel the sense impending doom right now. I'm not saying the youth has it all figured out. It's just that these younger generations are more attuned to it. More able to adapt and roll with the punches. We don't consume information the same way. We had to develop habits of thought on our own.
"We are in the midst of a momentous event in the evolution of human consciousness, but they won't be talking about it in the news tonight." - Eckhart Tolle
And who really knows what the cause of all this anxiety is. I'm sure there's plenty of sources. It just is. But to ignore it, to place your anxiety on the back-burner would be a grave mistake; not just for one's mental health, but for society as a whole.
Sure, it could be the rapid growth of technology - the constant connection, chipping away any and all privacy. It could be the pressure to succeed or live on the street. To work 3 jobs to provide for your family or pay the rent. Maybe it's the forthcoming "Great Awakening." Who knows?
All I know is that the unchecked anxiety is killing us.
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So we're learning to cope. Our children will be resilient. They will be higher entities anyway, more uploaded than us, more connected. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't teach them how to manage their stress.
Below, I've paraphrased some general concepts from mastermind filmmaker, Ken Burns, who uses these "3 Truths" to cope with anxieties of the modern world. They are equally applicable and valid here.
3 Tips to Help Tame the Anxious Mind
1. A motto: "this will pass."
- All things and all moments are transitory. Ever-changing. Impermanent.
2. Seek help from others.
- Assistance can provide accountability and self-motivation to improve.
3. Be kind to yourself.
- Everyone is still learning. It's ok. Being too tough on yourself will only create more of a mountain to climb.
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