'The Anxious Generation': Things Are Worse Than We Realized

We have a fear of being left out, a fear of failure, a fear of rejection, a fear that our children will forget about us when they leave home, a fear that loved ones will leave us, that our spouses will lose interest, that our beauty will fade, that our jobs will be automated, that our food will cause cancer, that our president will spark an interna

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In some corners of the Internet there’s a fascination with traditionalism, and criticism of the ways the openness and optionality of modernity have left people feeling lost. I’ve always felt like, look, I could never be a traditionalist, because I don’t want to give birth to five kids without anesthesia and spend half of my day cleaning up around t... See more

This is choice paralysis. Previous generations didn’t have many options so they stuck together through hard times and made it work. Now, abundance (or its illusion) has led people to feel less satisfied. People are now more anxious about making a choice and less certain that the one they made was correct.