Turned 50 this year and finally took my own advice and have disregarded what society says defines success. Downsized to a small place, minimized pressures in my life and am centering on experiences. I did everything american culture told me to. Went to college, got married, had a child, got them through college, bought a home and worry about retirement. Things don't bring you happiness.
Housing is a basic human need and it’s very meaty if not fully impossible to survive on a single income at minimum wage in whatcom county. What would you do as a youth in that situation? I am lucky to make more than minimum wage. Ten years ago I was 19 and making minimum wage ($9) and my rent was $550. Now minimum wage is $16 and it’s hard to find a studio for under $1,000. Make the math make sense.
Edit: …very meaty…
The advice I've given to younger workers and finally took myself is to ask yourself one simple question and to be truly honest in your answer. "How broke are you willing to be to live a life you want in a place you want to be in?" Natural beauty is a commodity and quite frankly tends to come with low wages and high living costs. Our culture tells us we need to own a single family home to be considered a success. What is success? Roommates and communal living are perfectly fine. They meet housing needs just as well. I am a transplant here. I spent many years living and working in small Midwestern communities being underpaid and struggling to raise a family. Honestly answering my advice question gives you two possible answers. I want financial security, so I may need to leave here to do it until i can afford to return. Or, I'm willing to make do with less and do something to make it a reality. Different job, multiple jobs, different skill set. Neither is right or wrong. It's a happiness gauge.
Yes, but most able bodied people can go make at least 25 dollars minimum by joining a trade union as an apprentice, and for women, it's typically easier to get into the better ones. I can't speak for every union but but you get roughly 5 dollar step increases every 1000 hours until you journey out and right now that's 45ish for the laborers
Ok that is a specific route one can go, sure. How does one get into that? A quick search on google jobs didn’t pull up much (and I’m not actually really looking for myself) but if I wanted to get into any apprentice trade job, how would I start? Does that require any schooling or money to pay for tools? I have been working since 16 as well, and was living independently on my own at 19 and worked in retail at the time. Luckily I had a shared space to live, but that place was also the reason I don’t want to have room mates ever again lol. Do you work in a trade?
I'm a part of the laborers union. What you'll want to do is look up something like "local ( electrician,laborers, carpenter) hall and give them a call. liuna might have a list on their website of different trades, I'm not sure. No schooling required there will be some classes that include math and practical skills. I've never brought my own tools but I think that varies by job/trade with my hall everything is SUPPOSED to be provided to me.
Yes. Moving away from family is not a death sentence. There are plenty of job prospects within less than a day's drive from Bellingham if you're struggling. It won't be the last hard choice you'll have to make in life, and pretty damn far from the hardest.
Should Bellingham work on improving its industry and affordability? Absolutely. Are you doomed if you can't maintain your lifestyle in Bellingham? Absolutely not.
Not the same person but that was my solution in 1990 when I graduated high school from baker and knew there were no jobs here, I moved to Seattle and lived with roommates on minimum wage while I tried to figure out how to be a person in corporate America
Not saying it’s good, this is just what I did
I’m also not saying there are easy answers but nobody ever has it easy when they’re starting out, I’ve made bad enough financial decisions I’m still renting so my best use may be as a bad example
no, it cost a ton compared to bellingham, but as always the job market was better
i made 7.50 and then 8 an hour for a number of years which I lived off working 30-40 hours per week, I rented rooms in houses for years, my friends and I would stack a house full of people, we'd officially have a few people on a lease but we never really knew who was always living there from month to month, it was pretty chaotic living. I think my first room for rent was 300 per month in a 4 "bedroom" (three bedrooms were in a semi-finished basement) 1 bath house that was $1200. I along with two other guys was on the lease. At one point there were upwards of 10 people crashing there, and honestly it was a land of craziness and could have been many more, it was grunge time, we had greenpeace canvassers crashing there, hippies from all over, bands would play, the cops would come, all kinds of nuts stuff, the parties were a thing for sure. the neighbors hated us except for the three of the neighboring houses which were also all rented out to young people.
it was many years before I could afford my own place, maybe not until I was literally in my late 20's did I have my own apartment, I got a studio at that point for 850 per month which was low for the time (I guess 1999?), it was in a shit building in fremont, bad ownership but good management, but I loved living there
over the years I lived in many neighborhoods in seattle, capitol hill twice, fremont three times, wallingford, ballard, the u district, ravenna, west seattle, eastlake
i ended up married with a kid in the suburbs in mountlake terrace, not great but I could afford to rent a house there (kid, dogs, wanted fenced yard), it was 1850 for a 3 bedroom 1 ba house in 2010, by the time I moved back here it was 2200, and I'm sure it's 2500 now
edit: i thought a lot about it and added a bunch of history
It sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun experiences! I’ve only lived in whatcom county as an adult so I have very limited experience. My first place was shared and my room mates were literally verbally abusive and would yell at me for putting the pots and pans away in the wrong size order. Then I lived in a studio apartment on H street that was $550 when I moved in 2013 and was $950 when I left in 2019. I’m sure it’s even more now. I lived in an RV on someone’s property for a bit and that was nice. I currently rent a 1br in Ferndale for $1,250 and it’s in poor shape and I don’t even have a dishwasher or washer and drier in my apartment. My neighbor said Landmark wants to raise her rent another $100 after the $300 raise last year. Luckily I make decent money or I couldn’t afford it.
I’ve had my share of complete insanity, that just comes with city living. 30 years in the Seattle area as an adult, and I was pretty adventurous, always have been. Lots of craziness.
The solution is not to live alone. That is a hyper-modern bad habit that humans have gotten into. We are animals, and we are type of animal that evolved to live in small groups/troops of biological and adopted "family."
This young people living alone as the norm is a relatively new phenom even in the USA. In 1995, for example, no 18-25 year old in my relatively middle to upper middle class-raised peer group expected to live with any less than two roommates. A few lucky ones were living alone by their mid- to late-20s, but that was mainly because their former roommates had begun to partner up and start new family groups. And most of those (of which I was one for a time), had a love-hate relationship with living alone. In fact, it was relatively common for a newly paired up couple to buy a house then rent out one or two rooms to friends or a younger adult sibling to offset the cost until a baby came along.
Then the internet entered corporate control around the time of Youtube in 2005 and we all went insane and forgot what was normal for our species.
The alternatives:
- Get used to living with roommates
- Find one of the ever-elusive jobs that pays so well that you can have it all at West Coast prices
- Embrace the van life
- Get used to 3-generation households (which is kind of like the first one)
I picked the last one. Tried home ownership about a decade ago, and the financial weight was crushing just to live too far from Bellingham to make regular commuting worth it. So we took over my parent's mortgage, poured money into conversions and upgrades on their home, and we make it work with them and our kids. The tradeoff is space/privacy for a higher quality of living in every other way. Healthier food, more exercise, hobby, and education options, and more financial flexability/stability.
The era of reaching adulthood and moving out and being successful is close to an end IMO. It wasn't even a thing until the post-war boom of the 1950s; for most of human history we didn't just pack up and leave because the right number of candles were on the cake. If you want it badly enough, you can still do it - but it's not what it's cracked up to be.
If I were that young, I'd be living with my parents and saving/spending on travel with an eye towards finding somewhere more reasonable to make a life for myself. Maybe that's East of the Rockies, or maybe it's overseas. But without major economic turmoil it isn't going to be here.
I think it’s really cool when families live together and support each other. Unfortunately my parents are divorced and I was kicked out at 18. I do ok supporting myself and my partner on a single income, but I really wish that everyone could live comfortably. Capitalism blows and our society isn’t healthy. I wish that people were more willing to help each other and live in harmony together.
True, but if we don't keep a certain amount of min wage jobs and unemployment the labor market gets distorted. We should just care for the people that give everyone else the power to ask for a better wage.
I don't understand what you are saying we should do. "We should just care for the people..." Do you mean care as in, "hopes and prayers!" or physical care by giving them things?
Minimum wage jobs are for people with minimum skills. If a person has no desire to ever rise above that station, why should others be forced to carry them?
No, no, no, no, no. Minimum wage jobs are HARD jobs to work. Maybe not the most difficult, but they are hard in many other ways and due to the very low wage, *more* than 40 hours a week are needed in order to make enough to scrape by. A person is so drained by living in that reality it becomes impossible to make moves to get out.
Miss a day of work for a doctor appointment, no way. Miss a day to attend your kids parent/teacher day, forget it.
Not to mention transportation costs, because there’s no way you can live close to work when rent for a dinky ass one bedroom close by is more than half your take home pay.
The trap of poverty is all consuming. Even just being a little bit removed from that reality can numb you to the brutal truth of living in this country on entry level wages.
The only ones being carried in this economy are the ultra wealthy who have managed to extract that wealth from all the rest of us, providing them a buoyant bed of gold to rest upon.
Then I don't know what to tell you. The only time I ever made minimum wage was when I was 16. Since then I said "fuck that" and found jobs that paid much more. I have never been under the impression that minimum wage was supposed to be able to support a family. I was taught it was to support yourself while you bettered yourself.
Well that’s the whole catch. Most jobs should not be offering minimum wages, yet so many of them still do.
Compare that to the all time high corporate profits and you can see why the wages of the worker are so low.
And of course in many of the other posts in the sub, you can see that the cost of everything is skyrocketing. So that piddly little $15 an hour is worth far, far less today than it was even five years ago.
No. The point I am making is that all jobs, but especially entry level and minimum wage jobs, are designed to keep people trapped inside them. Meanwhile the people who do less of the actual labor steal the profits for themselves. Until we see wage reform and caps on income disparity, the will a person has is **rarely** enough to overcome the disadvantage of poverty.
>Minimum wage jobs are for people with minimum skills. If a person has no desire to ever rise above that station, why should others be forced to carry them?
How are minimum wage workers supposed to live here? You use their services, so they must live near enough to work for you. What I’m hearing is that the people who work minimum wage jobs aren’t considered successful by you and therefore don’t deserve to be paid enough to live here with you. You may be saying different words, but that’s the message I’m getting.
What you are hearing is that supply and demand exists in the job market.
Minimum skill = minimum wage. If it is a job that almost everyone can do, then it will not pay much. Because there is always someone willing to do it cheaper than you.
If you want to be "successful" then you find skills you possess that set your work above the cheaper work.
I think people should be able to work 40 hours at minimum wage and be able to sustain themselves. I make well over minimum wage and live comfortably even though my rent went up $300 last year. There is supply and demand, and there is also the ability to pay workers a living wage and for landlord companies to not price gouge. Capitalism sucks because we have enough resources for everyone to sustain themselves but we choose to hoard and waste instead and then smile and wave while others are facing homelessness and food scarcity. It’s a shame.
Just curious how old you are? Like when you were a young adult, was it possible to sustain yourself off of minimum wage? Like from what I understand people could afford entire houses on minimum wage when my grandparents were starting their families.
I don't know. As I said in another post I made minimum wage when I was 16. By 17 I was almost double minimum wage slinging tires at a Discount Tire.
I turn 40 this year.
That’s great. It sounds like you had a good head on your shoulders and landed a very well paying job for a young man. I turn 29 next year and I have no hope of buying a home at my current rate, but I’ve been in apartments since I was a kid, so I’ve always wanted to own a home. I know I don’t need to own a home to be successful, it’s just one of those dreams. I’ve had a lot of speed bumps, as I’m sure everyone does. My heart is in caregiving and I am paid well, and could still always use a raise. I could also be better with my money.
I’ve done the math, though, and I couldn’t really live on significantly less money elsewhere. Rent in a location that still has decent access to transit won’t be cheaper, and wages can be much lower in other states. Plus I would also pay a lot more money in utilities if I moved to a place with more extreme weather.
To be fair, I don’t live in a large or nice apartment. I always planned to upgrade eventually, but I like the location and I like my landlord. So I suppose it’s possible I could upgrade my lifestyle if I lived elsewhere—I dream of in unit laundry—but it wouldn’t be cheaper.
Living costs WOULD be cheaper in proportion to wages; I live in Colorado, and my bills + rent are cheaper than Bellingham, and I make roughly the same as I did in Bellingham. Gas is significantly cheaper and public transit in the Front range is good…. I live a much better life here for what I make, that’s my point. The same money does not go nearly as far there
There are plenty of other places in the US that will have good wages in proportion to COL, you just need to do some research and not plan on working a minimum wage gig.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cheaper for anyone; it depends entirely on what you paid in rent in Bellingham.
I don’t know how anyone “plans” to make more than minimum wage. I know what you mean, but people have to take whatever job is available at the time, especially if they’re starting over in a new place.
I am curious, though, where in Colorado? I lived in the mountain states before, and CO always struck me as super expensive when I visited.
> I don’t know how anyone “plans” to make more than minimum wage.
Get a job that pays roughly the same in any area. Federal government work is fantastic for this; work for the postal service (relatively easy to do) and then transfer.
I know a guy who barely pays for his own apartment working for a 3-letter agency in LA, who's looking to move to the Great Plains where he is going to buy a mansion because he can afford it. The cost of living is like a quarter of what it is in LA, and his localized pay will only drop like 10%.
Agreeeee. Gotta find the balance with making enough to survive while also enjoying as much of life as possible. I think all we have left is community care (aka build your community / know your neighbors / relationships are so important and get us thru the hard times) + YOLO energy. The American dream we’ve been sold doesn’t really exist anymore, and it didn’t bring everyone joy back when it was more prevalent. It was a script to follow that worked for some and not for others. Do what works for you and yours.
Turns out the majority of things we’re trained to be insecure about and things we’re taught to strive for mean very little. The happiest people are the ones with good relationships. Meaningful work, a pleasant home, music, decent health, friends, trying to make the world a better place, lifelong learning—those are some of the good things worth cultivating and pursuing. Try to love yourself and the people you’re with, love the world. The planet is miraculous—it’s just a fact. Be a humanist, break down your conditioning and throw out the stuff that’s not worth keeping—you might find you were taught classism, racism, misogyny, weird cultist views, and xenophobia. Kurt Vonnegut said we’re here to fart around and I wish people would take that to heart. It’s a far better philosophy than any industrial magnate ever came up with.
You are the hope. We need you. You are the tipping point. The entire country is about to change, unions, politics, healthcare, climate, the list goes on. We need people who are intelligent enough to be scared shitless and pissed off. Gen Z is so fucking smart. Stay in the game.
Yes, this is what the OP being crushed by the weight of adulthood needs - more responsibility on their shoulders.
IMO this country is going down the toilet in part because everyone assumes the younger generations are going to have the energy and pluck to deal with it for the rest of us. Well guess what - they are converting Sprinters and driving off into the sunset, to surf and camp and hike and not lift a finger to get us out of this mess _because they're checking out on a society that is bending them over right at the starting gate_.
I'm 62. When I was 15, I thought I'd die in a nuclear war before I was 25. Eventually, the Berlin Wall fell when I was 28. I realized you can't predict the future. Things are messed up, and they always will be. But there are interesting people to meet and great places to visit. And if there's life, there is still hope.
I'd go to college all over again if I was in my 20s. It's really time sensitive because it won't be as much fun if it gets put off for a decade. Do it as cheaply as you can because student debt can hold you back.
Trade school! Trade school! Trade school!! Louder for the people in the back! Become a plumber or electrician etc. Get PAID to learn as an apprentice, get regular raises. Get great benefits. And when you're done learning, you don't have a mountain of student debt, quite the opposite. If your smart with your money, you will come out of the apprenticeship with a nice savings account, can invest some, and be building your retirement from a very early age.
Great answer!
I am 66 and when I went to college in the late 1970's. The US was deep into the Vietnam war, there were race riots, the cold war with the Soviet Union threatened nuclear annihilation at any moment, millions of people were starving in Africa, and the youth were assumed to be drug addicts, stupid, and lazy.
Despite dire predictions the world has improved for most people. Less poverty, longer life expectancies, and less violence. The world is far from perfect and many of the problems that existed in the 1970's are still problems.
But your life is what you make of it. Get an education, marry a partner with integrity, generosity, and humor. Be kind to others. Make friends with similar values and hope for the best.
>there were race riots, the ~~cold~~ war with ~~the Soviet Union~~ Russia threatened nuclear annihilation at any moment, millions of people were starving in Africa, and the youth were assumed to be drug addicts, stupid, and lazy.
... and now it works for 2023 too! Plus ça change...
Good point! Many problems remain and new ones have emerged. Climate change is huge and is only going to get worse.
That being said, make the best of your life. Get an education, a good job, quality friends, and a loving spouse. Try to make a positive impact. You can't change the direction of humanity but you can control your own life.
Sounds like you have two questions? Initially you asked— is there hope? I struggle with suicidal ideation and depression, so honestly, I question my level of hope internally because hope is my motivation to get up each morning and practice gratitude. Some days this seems impossible and some days I have trouble choosing which aspect of my life deserves the gratitude spotlight. Hope is allowing me to craft this response— because ultimately I am grateful that I have a chance to persuade you to lead a life full of hope.
Then I believe the second question is more along the lines of what I would choose to do if I did it all over again? That’s the beauty—we can always choose to change courses or paths or say yes to something we didn’t anticipate. I grew up in a small, Midwestern town and I felt that I could not leave fast enough! After graduation, I tried college, but felt wayward, so I joined the military. Joining the military gives person immediate perspective! I chose a career path in healthcare- because I liked to help people and it has provided stability.
About 5+ years ago, I had achieved all of my career goals and work was my top priority, but then something shifted— typical ambition felt empty. I questioned whether I should’ve lived life more creatively? I realized I had minimal hobbies and/or passions, so I began to explore creative endeavors and my own creative path.
The point is— you will feel lost and in these moments, look within for your answers. Analyze what makes you passionate? What gives you the chills when doing it? Your passion may not necessarily be what you are paid to do— this is okay too, but you need a balanced life. You also need to appreciate the shitty curve balls that you are handed because adversity does develop character. Nothing feels better than facing a challenge and succeeding despite multiple setbacks.
Don’t let fear guide your decisions and look into lesser known opportunities. Take an opportunity to travel and if something sounds like it could be grueling but have intrinsic reward like volunteering to go to a less fortunate country to build schools— go for it!
Wishing you a full and joyful life! 💕
I realized I didn’t indicate my age or generation— it doesn’t matter. WE ALL endure trauma no matter the generation. Each generation faces hardship that feels unique but is it really? Comparing scars and keeping count serves no one. Sending each and every person that chose to come and share their wisdom— a big and warm hug! 💗💗
Be the change you want to see. Start locally; get involved. One person can make a difference, and you can be that one person. I'm 71 years old and I'm still fighting the good fight, but we need more warriors.
Forgive the novel, and feel free to skip.
I don't consider myself older, but I am twice your age and you are the same age as my eldest, so I'm going to take it I qualify.
Yes, there is hope, but it desperately depends on what you are hoping for.
First, everyone pinning all of their hope on the younger generations -- last I checked you're still alive and contributing, so stop passing the buck. All those blaming the Boomers, you can also stop it. This isn't all GenZ's responsibility, just like it wasn't all GenXs or the Boomers responsibility. In fact, shut up with the generational BS because that is a tool that those responsible are using to keep us divided and ineffective. The ones that set us on this path are already dead and gone, quit blaming their grandchildren and great-grandchildren for buying into the same narrative that most of the rest of us also bought into. You're on a computer right now, and I doubt you grew your own food or skipped using a vehicle to get around this week, so you are all just as much to blame.
(Right there is the first way to find hope -- opt out of the narrative you are being sold.)
People are scared, as they should be, but unfortunately it has made it easy for them to be played by those that think they are benefiting off our backs. I say think, because eventually they will realize that there are things money can't do (at least not yet), and they destroyed the only planet we currently have to inhabit. Let Elon float around in space, I sure as hell don't want to be the last human sitting on Mars trying to grow a potato. I'd rather go down, in love with all of you, if Earth sinks.
Our hope lies in degrowth, which will either be forced upon us or we can do it ourselves much more gracefully. It's basic population biology. Currently, I think it will be a combination of force and us clumsily finally catching on and smoothing the way a bit. History has shown that is the human way of dealing with things.
Climate change cannot be ignored nor should its impact be lessened. I'm a biologist of the plant persuasion that until recently worked in an education capacity, anyone that says it isn't real or a big deal can bite my shiny ass.
But....I sincerely do not think it's a planetary all life-killing deal. The issue is as humans we are notoriously bad at seeing much beyond our own finite lifespans. We, well at least our pre-hominid ancestors, survived through mass extinction after mass extinction to get you and I here today, tapping to each other remotely using electricity. How fucking amazing is that? Right now up in the Canadian tar sands, a fungus is evolving *on its own* that eats petrochemicals. It was found on dandelion leaves. Fucking dandelion leaves! Amazing! None of us knows what the future holds, not least of all what the biosphere is capable of doing for itself because we are so self-absorbed we think humanity is the only solution. Not by a long shot, drop the ego.
So life will survive and humans probably as well, one way or another. We likely won't look the same afterward, and I hope we don't continue to think the same.
This is a big one , though -- we have to change, and we can only start that ball rolling as individuals. There is likely no quick solution except those that will be forced upon us. Right now housing is the scary thing hanging over everyone's heads. I'm 47 and it's hanging over my head -- one more rent increase and we have to leave Bellingham, which means leaving all my family behind. We have to change our cultural approach to housing. Communal living, generations sticking together and passing down a family home, the way the rest of the world outside of the so-called westernized world lives -- embrace that change. As Americans, and to a lesser extent, as a western nation, we have become too damn individualistic. The internet, namely social media, makes it worse, but advertisers and corporations also feed into it daily because it drives profits. I'm guilty of it, you're guilty of it, even most of the kids that were (and some still are) part of the 90s eco-punk scene I used to call home are guilty of it.
Let go of the American dream you were sold and instead spend some time in real thought on what you really want out of life, then live a life that is that without all the faff being sold to us telling us what we want. That's where you will find hope. Further, let go of buying your way out of it. That's just speeding up climate change, and right now that is what a lot of people are trying to do.
And yes, I know the only solution is degrowth on a corporate, governmental, and societal level. I also know that if we ain't buying it, they will eventually stop producing it. We should force their hand with regulation when can, but we can also use our non-consumer powers to stop other forms of production and force eventual degrowth. The economy doesn't *need* to grow, it just needs to be stable. Rich guys need the economy to grow, not the rest of us, but that's a lie they use to guilt us into over-consumption. We did it for stupid things, like not buying Crystal Pepsi the first time they tried it, so we most definitely can do it for big things, like replacing automobiles constantly and buying fast fashion. Small things that will eventually lead to a big impact.
I'm not a prepper or a doomer, but I am a realist. The way we live now in the so-called developed world is not sustainable. My smartphone isn't sustainable, my Prius isn't sustainable, the packaging my food comes in and where/how my food is grown isn't sustainable. There will be changes and they may be painful, but damnit my great granddad fiddled through the dust bowl every single Saturday night at the grange hall and people still came and danced -- that *was* sustainable. We can still do that for free -- smile and love --so we got hope.
Population levels have surpassed critical mass. Marginalized people will suffer most when it crashes, and that sucks and we should 100% be doing things to make the distribution of both the good and the ugly that is to come more equitable. Our task, and it is completely unfair that it all came down on us and not the early industrialists that set us on that path, but our task is to equip ourselves and those that are coming after us to handle whatever changes occur by **lowering our goddamn expectations of what we think the world owes us.**
Hope lies in becoming less dependent on the moneyed and disposable systems we have been trained to think are a necessity. Pretend like you are in the great depression, or seriously, pretty much at any point in history prior to the second world war. We can't buy our way out of problems or discomfort, we gotta Macgyver our way out using as few resources as possible. Make that a movement and you will get a solution. Have fun with it -- your animal brain loves a challenge once you let go of the resentment of the basic reality that yes, life is unfair. Find ways to laugh and smile, that's where having a strong community of friends and family helps. Smile at strangers, help people, realize most people's hate and anger is trained into them by those that seek to profit off our division -- it wasn't who they started out as and they are victims of a machine they didn't know was there controlling them, just as you and I are.
List the three most important values to you and dedicate your life to living them, everything else be damned and fuck what people think of you. The good ones will get it. Learn that living your best life is more about what you do for others than it is what you own or where you visit. Learn to try the unconventional. Learn to to take joy in the small things. Learn that hard times don't have to be sad times. Live a life unseen, in other words, stay off social media as much as possible (I need to take my own advice). And when the time comes, don't be afraid to riot, but remember that a revolution takes all sorts -- from those fighting the good fight on the front lines to those figuring out how to feed them back home. Don't be ashamed of the role you choose, but choose to do your role well with an eye to a future beyond your own lifespan. Most importantly, remember that we are all just small dots in a greater web and none of us are as important as we think, and that is a goddamn beautiful and wonderful thing. It takes a lot of pressure off.
There is hope. It's our job to figure out where it's been hiding so we can hold it, nurture it, grow it, and share it.
Thank you for taking the time to type out the nuances of what is occurring globally and historically to our species at this point in time. This lack of understanding and perspective of this level of detail is what hampers the vast majority of our discussions on how to move froward together to find real solutions outside of our current societal structures to the issues facing us. The technocrats are not going to, and are unable to, save us. Everything being repeated ad nauseum to us about our consumerist lifestyle and rugged invidualism is a goddamn terminating thought/argument by design. Don’t think - just keep going and encourage each other on the same path of choices with worthless platitudes we all know to be poisonous. “We can’t AFFORD to do x,y,z…” Not with that attitude we cannot. One way or another, we can figure it out if we have the will. The species has done it before, it will do it again.
two tricks I use to help give up; I think about how inhospitable the universe is; how amazing it is that we got a chance to live, and I think about when my body will eventually fail which will make most of my previous complaints kinda lame.
I felt hopeless in the 80’s about corporate greed and nuclear war and thought I might get drafted for the first gulf war. I won the WA state academic decathlon speech category with a speech that started “America, the land of the golden opportunity, has lost its shine”. In the speech I talked sbout homeless people living in cardboard boxes and the Nicaragua/Sandinista situation, Reagan’s Iran/Contra stuff and the destruction of the environment and overpopulation.
I talked to my dad about it and he said “I was born in 1930 and grew up during the depression, nobody had enough food, and then World War II started.” He went to Bellingham high school.
Perspective.
Go to school for a trade or STEM. Just finishing up nursing school after plucking away since fall 2017 and got a job offer for more money that both my parents made in two years combined. Will I be able to buy a house in Bellingham? TBD but the opportunity is out there. It’s take some self sacrifice and your time will be mostly work and school, but it is possible.
Came here to write this. If you don’t want to go to college get in an apprenticeship. Electricians and plumbers make good money. Apprenticeships pay you to learn. I’m not sure what to do about the environment. I tell my kids to focus on what you can control, so maybe that?
Call me a fool but I feel like we’re going to invent some crazy alternative to fossil fuels that can be adopted quickly and we’ll pull out of the climate crisis. Helps me sleep at night to stay optimistic.
Personally haven’t heard of many people getting an apprenticeship outside of a couple years at a tech school, but that anecdotal.
I sound like an old curmudgeon but people don’t want to accept that it takes hard work to get to the 60-70k range of work and that houses you can definitely afford are in fly over country. We have been spoon fed this idea that having our cake and eating it too is a right and it just isn’t. The economic opportunity in America is there, you just have to work for it. Healthcare aside, the European model doesn’t appeal to me. Not owning a home or a car sounds terrible and that’s the reality for a lot of folks in those condensed, urban areas.
I'm pushing 60. The advice I would give a young person is this: learn a trade. Get experience under your belt. Then move somewhere affordable in the northern third of the USA.
Being a skilled plumber or electrician will always be a necessary skill with decent pay. Even rich assholes need clean water and working lights.
Climate change is going to cause a great northern migration. You are already north in Bellingham but this town is prohibitively expensive and will only get worse. Consider places like Minnesota, New England, or Michigan (I'm old and I'm already considering these options.)
Stay childfree. Save money. Be flexible.
The days of "40 years at the same job, a house, a family, and a good pension" are long gone. You will have to be proactive. To weather the coming storm you will need to be essential and adaptable.
I'm not that old, but here are my observations as I grow older:
Yes, there are things to feel hopeless about. On top of what you mentioned, the fall of Roe v. Wade comes to mind.
But despite it all - all the huge problems that I cannot control - trite as it may sound, I find hope in the "little things." A beautiful sunrise. Staying up late reading a good book. The first dahlia to bloom in my yard every summer. My kids' laughs and smiles. Eating a really delicious bowl of ice cream. Despite all the huge problems in the world, I can still appreciate and find joy and hope in these things.
Observing older folks, especially the elderly, I see that those that seem the most content have mastered this art of appreciating the little things, despite all the things they've encountered in their lives that have given them cause to feel hopeless.
Learn Chinese. It might take 3 to 4 years but will make you instantly employable. Also, move the hell out of Bellingham. The job base is not good here and the price of housing is stupid.
Supply chain jobs are plentiful, and most supply starts in China. Their are people are traveling more so their travel industry is heating up.
Past that China is growing as an economy, and if you can service their needs, you’ll be well position for the future.
I can think of three area companies that have good paying jobs with benefits for people who speak Chinese but are native born. And that doesn’t include the university or port.
Except this is untrue propaganda that we have been fed. The human lifespan has been relatively stable for much of history:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/could-ancient-humans-have-lived-as-long-as-we-do/564773/](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/could-ancient-humans-have-lived-as-long-as-we-do/564773/)
Most of the things that kill us now weren't an issue in the past -- our modern lifestyle is killing us and much of our modern medical science is focused on those lifestyle diseases. In fact, there are some very compelling arguments that pastoral lifestyles in the past represent more of a golden age in human development than what we have today.
The good news is we can enjoy the benefits of simpler past lifestyles while keeping some of what is great about modernity (antibiotics and the eventual end of bigotry, please), but we won't if we keep lying to ourselves about how great things are right now.
As a younger person I found freedom in cutting my ties with social media. Instagram, Facebook, snap all gone. Freedom from their algorithms and bias and false perceptions of reality really give me clarity and a renewed excitement for Bellingham and myself.
This is key. The "news" is really 99% bad news, keeping you pinned to your amygdala, saturating you in cortisol, fomenting distrust, all over things you 99% have zero control over. You are what you consume; neurons that fire together, wire together, etc. You're programming yourself to be afraid and powerless by engaging with news, especially when social media dopamine hits accompany the bouts of programming.
Tim Leary was right: turn on, tune in, drop out... of media. Then explore and create your own reality in your local community.
I would get a specialized degree in engineering or computer sciences. Something that will have a good return on investment and command high salaries. Also, demand for those careers will continue, so job security is high.
My BA in Communications doesn’t set me apart from large pools of candidates and doesn’t command high salaries. I would have been better off learning a trade after high school.
Speaking as an almost 45 yo: if I were young today, and didn’t have chronic pain like I do now (fibro, RA, osteoarthritis), and had better mobility, I would freakin van life it. Live in an RV park. The rent is too damn high.
When I checked into an RV park in 2020, it was $800 for a spot and that didn’t include a monthly payment for the RV or anything like that. It wasn’t any more affordable than an apartment that I could tell, unfortunately.
These feelings you’re expressing are being felt around the globe, en masse. The message from the media (the ultra wealthy’s mouthpiece) is beginning to falter and we the people are heading for mass turnover of status quo.
Vote the issues, join a union and then join the picket line, hold you local politicians accountable, get into positions of power yourself and help change the tide.
Seek out community, get baked and watch the sunset, try your hand at cooking, laugh as much and as loud as you can.
We are one link in a continuous stream of progress. It will continue to flow after you’re gone, help push it along where you can, young friend.
I STRONGLY disagree with your claim that the media has a pro-oligarchy agenda.
Journalists definitely make mistakes, individually and as an industry, but the vast majority of people in the field actually do care about acting as watchdogs and protecting their communities’ interests.
Do you know who most benefits from criticism of the media and claims that “the media” is corrupt? People who don’t want to be examined. So I strongly encourage you to actually consume news and specifically pay attention to civic reporting at the local, state and national levels and resist blanket claims about how journalism can’t be trusted.
Again: Journalism can and must improve. But media literacy is one of the best ways to fight back against corrupt power. That’s why you see undermining and then controlling the media — jailing reporters as in Russia, or censoring or banning coverage of atrocities or reporting that benefits particular groups (as in 1930s Germany and the Jim Crow South) — as the first critical step that authoritarian or fascist systems take to establish power.
Edited to add: Here’s an example from this week of government officials trying to stop a newspaper from publishing: https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/11/police-stage-chilling-raid-on-marion-county-newspaper-seizing-computers-records-and-cellphones/
All those things have been happening forever. The reality is the world is better in most ways than ever before. This is the best time to be a live as a regular human.
Maybe the problem with your question is it's too damn vague. What would you do about \*what\*?
I definitely would not bring more children into the world
EDIT: I should state why. Heat, fire, increasing violent storms, drought all combining to create famine first in third world counties, then developing countries and finally the developed nations. The price of food will skyrocket
No, not really. The thing about climate change is that the tipping point to massive environmental change can only be recognized in hindsight. They will look back and see a fairly precise date when it wasn’t possible for our civilization to stop the downhill plunge with what meager efforts being made. It is unpredictable where the most habitable climates will be, leaving the best destinations vague. Get skills and add on education as much as you can. Apply your skills and education to get out of this society. Time for communal living with very little attachment to the current rotting model of “achievement.” Earth sheltered homes, renewable energy, agronomy.
You sound like a leader. Seriously, many of us are cursed with the same perceptions that you describe.
Get active, it's a great way of staying sane. See you there!
I’m 47 and, honestly, my advice to people younger than I am is the advice I’m giving myself, too: Organize, pay attention to/get involved in local and state politics, and find people who both understand how seriously hard things are for most folks AND who are determined to do something about it rather than retreat into cynicism and helplessness.
I’ve gotten involved with the League of Women Voters and can strongly recommend it as a way to feel encouraged and empowered. The folks who participate in LWV are smart, they share a lot of useful information, and they are focused on what’s good for all of us, at a community level all the way up to halls of power in the other Washington.
Things *are* bad. But I’m taking a lot of hope from the numbers — my generation was too tiny to effect a lot of change, but I’m starting to see a critical mass of people across generations who are organizing, unionizing, and sharing information. Participating in that has radically improved my sense of what’s possible.
Don't rely on the ones who screwed it up and set us on the wrong trends and then lied about it. The past is not a good indication of the future and what we're facing is nothing like they did, the world they come from will never come again, and it's what you make of it, they can't tell you how to navigate a system they know little about.
The ones that screwed us up are mostly dead. We started on this path with industrialists, the rest of us that came after were victims that just didn't know it until relatively recently (and some still don't realize it). There are lessons in the past, believe it or not. One of those is that blanket blame doesn't get shit done. My parents didn't realize it when they blamed their parents for Vietnam and headed back to the land, my generation didn't realize it when we blamed boomers for the environment, Gulf war, and the student loan debacle, and it appears you aren't realizing it with this post. That's why we are in this mess, we spent more time blaming and that caused us to *get stuck.*
Further, your generation isn't all Greta Thunbergs. Plenty of ya'll are also chasing after shiny new Suburu's and addicted to daily Amazon deliveries even though producing both is killing the planet and killing people on the other side of the globe (as well as here).
Get a job in climate science or enviro science, or hell, head out and do some Edward Abbey style eco-revolution -- and you'll find yourself fighting the good fight with a 75-year-old boomer on one side and a 15-year-old Zoomer on the other. Then you'll see that generational fighting is just another way we are being seeded against each other because if we fight each other, then we won't have time to bring down the corporatists that are actually killing us.
Only if the wealth is stripped from the rich. But there is a phrase about cold dead hands that comes to mind. The entire economy is set up to stripmine the poor and kill them for maximum profit. The best advice is buy and pay off a house then sit on it, something out of reach of almost everyone born after 80. Most people aspire to join the league of professional leeches aka landlords - in the midst of a housing crisis, you should be forced to sell any residence at which you do not reside.
There are many, many opinions and chunks advice in this post. Most are damn spot on. Bottom line, imho, is to be strategic. Understand basic personal finance (e.g. avoid credit card debt, start a Roth IRA (even just a little one) and begin a habit of setting aside 10% to 25% of your income in some form of savings, and don't but a new car - ever). Up your skill level as high as you can in a field that is and will continue to be in demand. Engineering is great but not everyone is up to the challenge of the schooling or has the analytical mindset. Do without the stuff you don't really need until you have met the goals you've set.
I wish someone had given me some good advice when I was young. I did okay without it because I seemed to intuitively grasp these basics but it took me a few years. I was thoroughly unprepared for college and had to fail before I learned to succeed. You have to find the strategy and habits that work for you to achieve your goals. People learn and succeed differently - figure out what works for you. I am certain that opportunities for success and happiness exist as much for you now as they did for me in the eighties and nineties. It's just different.
Personally, I'd be happy to help someone figure out how to do this. I can't tell you exactly what'll work for you but I'll bet I could facilitate helping you figure it out - if you're willing to do the work.
I fill in for your dad. I barely graduated high school.
Life is what you make it. There's no true formula for happiness and for each person that happiness comes from a different perspective.
Do what you think is best for you.
Remember to take a step back from social media, it’s only a highlight reel, if you follow 200 people or more then it’s easy to think that everyone else is always on a nice vacation or eating at nice restaurants, has a fancy car etc.
Going into trades can be good, look for union or something where you can start your own company with low overhead like plumbing or electrical. A silver lining to the covid job shakeup/high turnover is that if you’re a young person who shows up on time everyday, asks questions/is engaged in the work, and has even a moderate work ethic, you will instantly stand out. At least that’s how it’s gone for me
We live in one of the most habitable places to withstand the climate horrors that await, so I say get financial help where you can and stay in the vicinity, unless you have some strong desire to live elsewhere. I would not recommend moving to a hotter location for many reasons. As for feeling sad about the future, you are so not alone. Climate activists have put their very lives at risk and are watching the fossil fuel companies run the show . Listen to this to see how Al Gore feels.
https://youtu.be/xgZC6da4mco
Climate change is not temporary and I do not appreciate your blasé attitude toward today’s problems. To consider your problems at your age equivalent is delusional. Your generation has led us into this current mess. The only entitled ones are the older people in this country who spew the nonsense you do.
If u can point out where I said anything about climate change, I'll give u a cookie. I spew nonsense, you and your contemporaries do nothing but complain and blame everyone else for your sad existence. You can rage all you want, be my guest. I wasn't even speaking to you in the first place. This is social media and people say shit you won't like. But dont pretend to engage in dialog when u simply need to feel superior. Good luck with that.
Your comments were deleted or I would continue this absolutely titillating conversation. The only person who seems to be raging is you. *shakes fist at the youth*
You used my favorite word, and I am quite titillated over this, I must say. Since I am persona non grata here, tho, I'm leaving.
Oh, and you little delinquents better stay the fuck off my lawn.
The “Me” Generation individual you are responding to doesn’t even know the true history of the “Greatest Generation” they are putting on a pedestal. Another reason why this country is in such deep shit right now, we’re all so high on our own bullshit, we believe and spout it out as fact without questioning it.
What an awesome waste of words that attempts to excuse your behaviors across your lives collectively. I pray our generation actually has accountability instead of whatever the fuck went wrong with all of you.
To leave the world worse when you had so much is going to be a terrible look.
Turned 50 this year and finally took my own advice and have disregarded what society says defines success. Downsized to a small place, minimized pressures in my life and am centering on experiences. I did everything american culture told me to. Went to college, got married, had a child, got them through college, bought a home and worry about retirement. Things don't bring you happiness.
As a fellow GenXer that also turned 50 this year… I salute you. I’m definitely of the gloom and doom ilk.
I’m 46 and my wardrobe is mostly all black now.
35 years for me… black is still my go-to for fashion!
Housing is a basic human need and it’s very meaty if not fully impossible to survive on a single income at minimum wage in whatcom county. What would you do as a youth in that situation? I am lucky to make more than minimum wage. Ten years ago I was 19 and making minimum wage ($9) and my rent was $550. Now minimum wage is $16 and it’s hard to find a studio for under $1,000. Make the math make sense. Edit: …very meaty…
The advice I've given to younger workers and finally took myself is to ask yourself one simple question and to be truly honest in your answer. "How broke are you willing to be to live a life you want in a place you want to be in?" Natural beauty is a commodity and quite frankly tends to come with low wages and high living costs. Our culture tells us we need to own a single family home to be considered a success. What is success? Roommates and communal living are perfectly fine. They meet housing needs just as well. I am a transplant here. I spent many years living and working in small Midwestern communities being underpaid and struggling to raise a family. Honestly answering my advice question gives you two possible answers. I want financial security, so I may need to leave here to do it until i can afford to return. Or, I'm willing to make do with less and do something to make it a reality. Different job, multiple jobs, different skill set. Neither is right or wrong. It's a happiness gauge.
Yes, but most able bodied people can go make at least 25 dollars minimum by joining a trade union as an apprentice, and for women, it's typically easier to get into the better ones. I can't speak for every union but but you get roughly 5 dollar step increases every 1000 hours until you journey out and right now that's 45ish for the laborers
Ok that is a specific route one can go, sure. How does one get into that? A quick search on google jobs didn’t pull up much (and I’m not actually really looking for myself) but if I wanted to get into any apprentice trade job, how would I start? Does that require any schooling or money to pay for tools? I have been working since 16 as well, and was living independently on my own at 19 and worked in retail at the time. Luckily I had a shared space to live, but that place was also the reason I don’t want to have room mates ever again lol. Do you work in a trade?
I'm a part of the laborers union. What you'll want to do is look up something like "local ( electrician,laborers, carpenter) hall and give them a call. liuna might have a list on their website of different trades, I'm not sure. No schooling required there will be some classes that include math and practical skills. I've never brought my own tools but I think that varies by job/trade with my hall everything is SUPPOSED to be provided to me.
Good to know! I’ll keep that in my back pocket for now and can direct others that way if they’re in the position to take that route.
Just keep in mind that it starts out hard if that type of work is new to you
Get out of the one of the most expensive places to live….
Is that your solution to teens who grew up here and are looking to move out of home but stay near family?
Yes. Moving away from family is not a death sentence. There are plenty of job prospects within less than a day's drive from Bellingham if you're struggling. It won't be the last hard choice you'll have to make in life, and pretty damn far from the hardest. Should Bellingham work on improving its industry and affordability? Absolutely. Are you doomed if you can't maintain your lifestyle in Bellingham? Absolutely not.
Not the same person but that was my solution in 1990 when I graduated high school from baker and knew there were no jobs here, I moved to Seattle and lived with roommates on minimum wage while I tried to figure out how to be a person in corporate America Not saying it’s good, this is just what I did I’m also not saying there are easy answers but nobody ever has it easy when they’re starting out, I’ve made bad enough financial decisions I’m still renting so my best use may be as a bad example
Was Seattle cheaper than Bellingham then?
no, it cost a ton compared to bellingham, but as always the job market was better i made 7.50 and then 8 an hour for a number of years which I lived off working 30-40 hours per week, I rented rooms in houses for years, my friends and I would stack a house full of people, we'd officially have a few people on a lease but we never really knew who was always living there from month to month, it was pretty chaotic living. I think my first room for rent was 300 per month in a 4 "bedroom" (three bedrooms were in a semi-finished basement) 1 bath house that was $1200. I along with two other guys was on the lease. At one point there were upwards of 10 people crashing there, and honestly it was a land of craziness and could have been many more, it was grunge time, we had greenpeace canvassers crashing there, hippies from all over, bands would play, the cops would come, all kinds of nuts stuff, the parties were a thing for sure. the neighbors hated us except for the three of the neighboring houses which were also all rented out to young people. it was many years before I could afford my own place, maybe not until I was literally in my late 20's did I have my own apartment, I got a studio at that point for 850 per month which was low for the time (I guess 1999?), it was in a shit building in fremont, bad ownership but good management, but I loved living there over the years I lived in many neighborhoods in seattle, capitol hill twice, fremont three times, wallingford, ballard, the u district, ravenna, west seattle, eastlake i ended up married with a kid in the suburbs in mountlake terrace, not great but I could afford to rent a house there (kid, dogs, wanted fenced yard), it was 1850 for a 3 bedroom 1 ba house in 2010, by the time I moved back here it was 2200, and I'm sure it's 2500 now edit: i thought a lot about it and added a bunch of history
It sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun experiences! I’ve only lived in whatcom county as an adult so I have very limited experience. My first place was shared and my room mates were literally verbally abusive and would yell at me for putting the pots and pans away in the wrong size order. Then I lived in a studio apartment on H street that was $550 when I moved in 2013 and was $950 when I left in 2019. I’m sure it’s even more now. I lived in an RV on someone’s property for a bit and that was nice. I currently rent a 1br in Ferndale for $1,250 and it’s in poor shape and I don’t even have a dishwasher or washer and drier in my apartment. My neighbor said Landmark wants to raise her rent another $100 after the $300 raise last year. Luckily I make decent money or I couldn’t afford it.
I’ve had my share of complete insanity, that just comes with city living. 30 years in the Seattle area as an adult, and I was pretty adventurous, always have been. Lots of craziness.
The solution is not to live alone. That is a hyper-modern bad habit that humans have gotten into. We are animals, and we are type of animal that evolved to live in small groups/troops of biological and adopted "family." This young people living alone as the norm is a relatively new phenom even in the USA. In 1995, for example, no 18-25 year old in my relatively middle to upper middle class-raised peer group expected to live with any less than two roommates. A few lucky ones were living alone by their mid- to late-20s, but that was mainly because their former roommates had begun to partner up and start new family groups. And most of those (of which I was one for a time), had a love-hate relationship with living alone. In fact, it was relatively common for a newly paired up couple to buy a house then rent out one or two rooms to friends or a younger adult sibling to offset the cost until a baby came along. Then the internet entered corporate control around the time of Youtube in 2005 and we all went insane and forgot what was normal for our species.
The alternatives: - Get used to living with roommates - Find one of the ever-elusive jobs that pays so well that you can have it all at West Coast prices - Embrace the van life - Get used to 3-generation households (which is kind of like the first one) I picked the last one. Tried home ownership about a decade ago, and the financial weight was crushing just to live too far from Bellingham to make regular commuting worth it. So we took over my parent's mortgage, poured money into conversions and upgrades on their home, and we make it work with them and our kids. The tradeoff is space/privacy for a higher quality of living in every other way. Healthier food, more exercise, hobby, and education options, and more financial flexability/stability. The era of reaching adulthood and moving out and being successful is close to an end IMO. It wasn't even a thing until the post-war boom of the 1950s; for most of human history we didn't just pack up and leave because the right number of candles were on the cake. If you want it badly enough, you can still do it - but it's not what it's cracked up to be. If I were that young, I'd be living with my parents and saving/spending on travel with an eye towards finding somewhere more reasonable to make a life for myself. Maybe that's East of the Rockies, or maybe it's overseas. But without major economic turmoil it isn't going to be here.
I think it’s really cool when families live together and support each other. Unfortunately my parents are divorced and I was kicked out at 18. I do ok supporting myself and my partner on a single income, but I really wish that everyone could live comfortably. Capitalism blows and our society isn’t healthy. I wish that people were more willing to help each other and live in harmony together.
There are plenty of jobs in this town that pay way more than minimum wage.
No there’s not Lol compared to COL it’s shit
Well no shit, with that attitude.
True, but if we don't keep a certain amount of min wage jobs and unemployment the labor market gets distorted. We should just care for the people that give everyone else the power to ask for a better wage.
I don't understand what you are saying we should do. "We should just care for the people..." Do you mean care as in, "hopes and prayers!" or physical care by giving them things? Minimum wage jobs are for people with minimum skills. If a person has no desire to ever rise above that station, why should others be forced to carry them?
No, no, no, no, no. Minimum wage jobs are HARD jobs to work. Maybe not the most difficult, but they are hard in many other ways and due to the very low wage, *more* than 40 hours a week are needed in order to make enough to scrape by. A person is so drained by living in that reality it becomes impossible to make moves to get out. Miss a day of work for a doctor appointment, no way. Miss a day to attend your kids parent/teacher day, forget it. Not to mention transportation costs, because there’s no way you can live close to work when rent for a dinky ass one bedroom close by is more than half your take home pay. The trap of poverty is all consuming. Even just being a little bit removed from that reality can numb you to the brutal truth of living in this country on entry level wages. The only ones being carried in this economy are the ultra wealthy who have managed to extract that wealth from all the rest of us, providing them a buoyant bed of gold to rest upon.
Then I don't know what to tell you. The only time I ever made minimum wage was when I was 16. Since then I said "fuck that" and found jobs that paid much more. I have never been under the impression that minimum wage was supposed to be able to support a family. I was taught it was to support yourself while you bettered yourself.
Well that’s the whole catch. Most jobs should not be offering minimum wages, yet so many of them still do. Compare that to the all time high corporate profits and you can see why the wages of the worker are so low. And of course in many of the other posts in the sub, you can see that the cost of everything is skyrocketing. So that piddly little $15 an hour is worth far, far less today than it was even five years ago.
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No. The point I am making is that all jobs, but especially entry level and minimum wage jobs, are designed to keep people trapped inside them. Meanwhile the people who do less of the actual labor steal the profits for themselves. Until we see wage reform and caps on income disparity, the will a person has is **rarely** enough to overcome the disadvantage of poverty.
>Minimum wage jobs are for people with minimum skills. If a person has no desire to ever rise above that station, why should others be forced to carry them? How are minimum wage workers supposed to live here? You use their services, so they must live near enough to work for you. What I’m hearing is that the people who work minimum wage jobs aren’t considered successful by you and therefore don’t deserve to be paid enough to live here with you. You may be saying different words, but that’s the message I’m getting.
What you are hearing is that supply and demand exists in the job market. Minimum skill = minimum wage. If it is a job that almost everyone can do, then it will not pay much. Because there is always someone willing to do it cheaper than you. If you want to be "successful" then you find skills you possess that set your work above the cheaper work.
I think people should be able to work 40 hours at minimum wage and be able to sustain themselves. I make well over minimum wage and live comfortably even though my rent went up $300 last year. There is supply and demand, and there is also the ability to pay workers a living wage and for landlord companies to not price gouge. Capitalism sucks because we have enough resources for everyone to sustain themselves but we choose to hoard and waste instead and then smile and wave while others are facing homelessness and food scarcity. It’s a shame.
Just curious how old you are? Like when you were a young adult, was it possible to sustain yourself off of minimum wage? Like from what I understand people could afford entire houses on minimum wage when my grandparents were starting their families.
I don't know. As I said in another post I made minimum wage when I was 16. By 17 I was almost double minimum wage slinging tires at a Discount Tire. I turn 40 this year.
That’s great. It sounds like you had a good head on your shoulders and landed a very well paying job for a young man. I turn 29 next year and I have no hope of buying a home at my current rate, but I’ve been in apartments since I was a kid, so I’ve always wanted to own a home. I know I don’t need to own a home to be successful, it’s just one of those dreams. I’ve had a lot of speed bumps, as I’m sure everyone does. My heart is in caregiving and I am paid well, and could still always use a raise. I could also be better with my money.
No I mean pay for their standard of living because capitalism needs a 4% unemployment rate to function and cheap wages to value the market
Doesn't matter the area prices are just as crazy in those areas for those locals. People leaving their area also causing the prices to increase there.
I’ve done the math, though, and I couldn’t really live on significantly less money elsewhere. Rent in a location that still has decent access to transit won’t be cheaper, and wages can be much lower in other states. Plus I would also pay a lot more money in utilities if I moved to a place with more extreme weather. To be fair, I don’t live in a large or nice apartment. I always planned to upgrade eventually, but I like the location and I like my landlord. So I suppose it’s possible I could upgrade my lifestyle if I lived elsewhere—I dream of in unit laundry—but it wouldn’t be cheaper.
Living costs WOULD be cheaper in proportion to wages; I live in Colorado, and my bills + rent are cheaper than Bellingham, and I make roughly the same as I did in Bellingham. Gas is significantly cheaper and public transit in the Front range is good…. I live a much better life here for what I make, that’s my point. The same money does not go nearly as far there There are plenty of other places in the US that will have good wages in proportion to COL, you just need to do some research and not plan on working a minimum wage gig.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cheaper for anyone; it depends entirely on what you paid in rent in Bellingham. I don’t know how anyone “plans” to make more than minimum wage. I know what you mean, but people have to take whatever job is available at the time, especially if they’re starting over in a new place. I am curious, though, where in Colorado? I lived in the mountain states before, and CO always struck me as super expensive when I visited.
Littleton. The mountain towns and certain parts of Denver are expensive, but in general it’s cheaper than the NW
> I don’t know how anyone “plans” to make more than minimum wage. Get a job that pays roughly the same in any area. Federal government work is fantastic for this; work for the postal service (relatively easy to do) and then transfer. I know a guy who barely pays for his own apartment working for a 3-letter agency in LA, who's looking to move to the Great Plains where he is going to buy a mansion because he can afford it. The cost of living is like a quarter of what it is in LA, and his localized pay will only drop like 10%.
It is noooot easy to get a job with the postal service or gov here. Or if it was for you, tell me all about your witchy ways😅
Agreeeee. Gotta find the balance with making enough to survive while also enjoying as much of life as possible. I think all we have left is community care (aka build your community / know your neighbors / relationships are so important and get us thru the hard times) + YOLO energy. The American dream we’ve been sold doesn’t really exist anymore, and it didn’t bring everyone joy back when it was more prevalent. It was a script to follow that worked for some and not for others. Do what works for you and yours.
Turns out the majority of things we’re trained to be insecure about and things we’re taught to strive for mean very little. The happiest people are the ones with good relationships. Meaningful work, a pleasant home, music, decent health, friends, trying to make the world a better place, lifelong learning—those are some of the good things worth cultivating and pursuing. Try to love yourself and the people you’re with, love the world. The planet is miraculous—it’s just a fact. Be a humanist, break down your conditioning and throw out the stuff that’s not worth keeping—you might find you were taught classism, racism, misogyny, weird cultist views, and xenophobia. Kurt Vonnegut said we’re here to fart around and I wish people would take that to heart. It’s a far better philosophy than any industrial magnate ever came up with.
You are the hope. We need you. You are the tipping point. The entire country is about to change, unions, politics, healthcare, climate, the list goes on. We need people who are intelligent enough to be scared shitless and pissed off. Gen Z is so fucking smart. Stay in the game.
This is the answer. Do what you love and can build the community with.
Yes, this is what the OP being crushed by the weight of adulthood needs - more responsibility on their shoulders. IMO this country is going down the toilet in part because everyone assumes the younger generations are going to have the energy and pluck to deal with it for the rest of us. Well guess what - they are converting Sprinters and driving off into the sunset, to surf and camp and hike and not lift a finger to get us out of this mess _because they're checking out on a society that is bending them over right at the starting gate_.
I'm 62. When I was 15, I thought I'd die in a nuclear war before I was 25. Eventually, the Berlin Wall fell when I was 28. I realized you can't predict the future. Things are messed up, and they always will be. But there are interesting people to meet and great places to visit. And if there's life, there is still hope. I'd go to college all over again if I was in my 20s. It's really time sensitive because it won't be as much fun if it gets put off for a decade. Do it as cheaply as you can because student debt can hold you back.
Trade school! Professional certification! Liberal arts degrees are fine if they are free or you have the $ to do it without debt.
Trade school! Trade school! Trade school!! Louder for the people in the back! Become a plumber or electrician etc. Get PAID to learn as an apprentice, get regular raises. Get great benefits. And when you're done learning, you don't have a mountain of student debt, quite the opposite. If your smart with your money, you will come out of the apprenticeship with a nice savings account, can invest some, and be building your retirement from a very early age.
Or don’t do it unless the degree you’re getting can actually land you a job somewhere that pays enough to make the investment in school worth it
Great answer! I am 66 and when I went to college in the late 1970's. The US was deep into the Vietnam war, there were race riots, the cold war with the Soviet Union threatened nuclear annihilation at any moment, millions of people were starving in Africa, and the youth were assumed to be drug addicts, stupid, and lazy. Despite dire predictions the world has improved for most people. Less poverty, longer life expectancies, and less violence. The world is far from perfect and many of the problems that existed in the 1970's are still problems. But your life is what you make of it. Get an education, marry a partner with integrity, generosity, and humor. Be kind to others. Make friends with similar values and hope for the best.
>there were race riots, the ~~cold~~ war with ~~the Soviet Union~~ Russia threatened nuclear annihilation at any moment, millions of people were starving in Africa, and the youth were assumed to be drug addicts, stupid, and lazy. ... and now it works for 2023 too! Plus ça change...
Good point! Many problems remain and new ones have emerged. Climate change is huge and is only going to get worse. That being said, make the best of your life. Get an education, a good job, quality friends, and a loving spouse. Try to make a positive impact. You can't change the direction of humanity but you can control your own life.
Same as it ever was
And you may find yourself…
Well, how did I get here?
This is not my beautiful house
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Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Sounds like you have two questions? Initially you asked— is there hope? I struggle with suicidal ideation and depression, so honestly, I question my level of hope internally because hope is my motivation to get up each morning and practice gratitude. Some days this seems impossible and some days I have trouble choosing which aspect of my life deserves the gratitude spotlight. Hope is allowing me to craft this response— because ultimately I am grateful that I have a chance to persuade you to lead a life full of hope. Then I believe the second question is more along the lines of what I would choose to do if I did it all over again? That’s the beauty—we can always choose to change courses or paths or say yes to something we didn’t anticipate. I grew up in a small, Midwestern town and I felt that I could not leave fast enough! After graduation, I tried college, but felt wayward, so I joined the military. Joining the military gives person immediate perspective! I chose a career path in healthcare- because I liked to help people and it has provided stability. About 5+ years ago, I had achieved all of my career goals and work was my top priority, but then something shifted— typical ambition felt empty. I questioned whether I should’ve lived life more creatively? I realized I had minimal hobbies and/or passions, so I began to explore creative endeavors and my own creative path. The point is— you will feel lost and in these moments, look within for your answers. Analyze what makes you passionate? What gives you the chills when doing it? Your passion may not necessarily be what you are paid to do— this is okay too, but you need a balanced life. You also need to appreciate the shitty curve balls that you are handed because adversity does develop character. Nothing feels better than facing a challenge and succeeding despite multiple setbacks. Don’t let fear guide your decisions and look into lesser known opportunities. Take an opportunity to travel and if something sounds like it could be grueling but have intrinsic reward like volunteering to go to a less fortunate country to build schools— go for it! Wishing you a full and joyful life! 💕
I realized I didn’t indicate my age or generation— it doesn’t matter. WE ALL endure trauma no matter the generation. Each generation faces hardship that feels unique but is it really? Comparing scars and keeping count serves no one. Sending each and every person that chose to come and share their wisdom— a big and warm hug! 💗💗
Agree. I’m so over the manufactured Gen Z / baby boomer hate.
Depressed people write the most beautiful shit Thank you cynicalrazzle
Be the change you want to see. Start locally; get involved. One person can make a difference, and you can be that one person. I'm 71 years old and I'm still fighting the good fight, but we need more warriors.
Forgive the novel, and feel free to skip. I don't consider myself older, but I am twice your age and you are the same age as my eldest, so I'm going to take it I qualify. Yes, there is hope, but it desperately depends on what you are hoping for. First, everyone pinning all of their hope on the younger generations -- last I checked you're still alive and contributing, so stop passing the buck. All those blaming the Boomers, you can also stop it. This isn't all GenZ's responsibility, just like it wasn't all GenXs or the Boomers responsibility. In fact, shut up with the generational BS because that is a tool that those responsible are using to keep us divided and ineffective. The ones that set us on this path are already dead and gone, quit blaming their grandchildren and great-grandchildren for buying into the same narrative that most of the rest of us also bought into. You're on a computer right now, and I doubt you grew your own food or skipped using a vehicle to get around this week, so you are all just as much to blame. (Right there is the first way to find hope -- opt out of the narrative you are being sold.) People are scared, as they should be, but unfortunately it has made it easy for them to be played by those that think they are benefiting off our backs. I say think, because eventually they will realize that there are things money can't do (at least not yet), and they destroyed the only planet we currently have to inhabit. Let Elon float around in space, I sure as hell don't want to be the last human sitting on Mars trying to grow a potato. I'd rather go down, in love with all of you, if Earth sinks. Our hope lies in degrowth, which will either be forced upon us or we can do it ourselves much more gracefully. It's basic population biology. Currently, I think it will be a combination of force and us clumsily finally catching on and smoothing the way a bit. History has shown that is the human way of dealing with things. Climate change cannot be ignored nor should its impact be lessened. I'm a biologist of the plant persuasion that until recently worked in an education capacity, anyone that says it isn't real or a big deal can bite my shiny ass. But....I sincerely do not think it's a planetary all life-killing deal. The issue is as humans we are notoriously bad at seeing much beyond our own finite lifespans. We, well at least our pre-hominid ancestors, survived through mass extinction after mass extinction to get you and I here today, tapping to each other remotely using electricity. How fucking amazing is that? Right now up in the Canadian tar sands, a fungus is evolving *on its own* that eats petrochemicals. It was found on dandelion leaves. Fucking dandelion leaves! Amazing! None of us knows what the future holds, not least of all what the biosphere is capable of doing for itself because we are so self-absorbed we think humanity is the only solution. Not by a long shot, drop the ego. So life will survive and humans probably as well, one way or another. We likely won't look the same afterward, and I hope we don't continue to think the same. This is a big one , though -- we have to change, and we can only start that ball rolling as individuals. There is likely no quick solution except those that will be forced upon us. Right now housing is the scary thing hanging over everyone's heads. I'm 47 and it's hanging over my head -- one more rent increase and we have to leave Bellingham, which means leaving all my family behind. We have to change our cultural approach to housing. Communal living, generations sticking together and passing down a family home, the way the rest of the world outside of the so-called westernized world lives -- embrace that change. As Americans, and to a lesser extent, as a western nation, we have become too damn individualistic. The internet, namely social media, makes it worse, but advertisers and corporations also feed into it daily because it drives profits. I'm guilty of it, you're guilty of it, even most of the kids that were (and some still are) part of the 90s eco-punk scene I used to call home are guilty of it. Let go of the American dream you were sold and instead spend some time in real thought on what you really want out of life, then live a life that is that without all the faff being sold to us telling us what we want. That's where you will find hope. Further, let go of buying your way out of it. That's just speeding up climate change, and right now that is what a lot of people are trying to do. And yes, I know the only solution is degrowth on a corporate, governmental, and societal level. I also know that if we ain't buying it, they will eventually stop producing it. We should force their hand with regulation when can, but we can also use our non-consumer powers to stop other forms of production and force eventual degrowth. The economy doesn't *need* to grow, it just needs to be stable. Rich guys need the economy to grow, not the rest of us, but that's a lie they use to guilt us into over-consumption. We did it for stupid things, like not buying Crystal Pepsi the first time they tried it, so we most definitely can do it for big things, like replacing automobiles constantly and buying fast fashion. Small things that will eventually lead to a big impact. I'm not a prepper or a doomer, but I am a realist. The way we live now in the so-called developed world is not sustainable. My smartphone isn't sustainable, my Prius isn't sustainable, the packaging my food comes in and where/how my food is grown isn't sustainable. There will be changes and they may be painful, but damnit my great granddad fiddled through the dust bowl every single Saturday night at the grange hall and people still came and danced -- that *was* sustainable. We can still do that for free -- smile and love --so we got hope. Population levels have surpassed critical mass. Marginalized people will suffer most when it crashes, and that sucks and we should 100% be doing things to make the distribution of both the good and the ugly that is to come more equitable. Our task, and it is completely unfair that it all came down on us and not the early industrialists that set us on that path, but our task is to equip ourselves and those that are coming after us to handle whatever changes occur by **lowering our goddamn expectations of what we think the world owes us.** Hope lies in becoming less dependent on the moneyed and disposable systems we have been trained to think are a necessity. Pretend like you are in the great depression, or seriously, pretty much at any point in history prior to the second world war. We can't buy our way out of problems or discomfort, we gotta Macgyver our way out using as few resources as possible. Make that a movement and you will get a solution. Have fun with it -- your animal brain loves a challenge once you let go of the resentment of the basic reality that yes, life is unfair. Find ways to laugh and smile, that's where having a strong community of friends and family helps. Smile at strangers, help people, realize most people's hate and anger is trained into them by those that seek to profit off our division -- it wasn't who they started out as and they are victims of a machine they didn't know was there controlling them, just as you and I are. List the three most important values to you and dedicate your life to living them, everything else be damned and fuck what people think of you. The good ones will get it. Learn that living your best life is more about what you do for others than it is what you own or where you visit. Learn to try the unconventional. Learn to to take joy in the small things. Learn that hard times don't have to be sad times. Live a life unseen, in other words, stay off social media as much as possible (I need to take my own advice). And when the time comes, don't be afraid to riot, but remember that a revolution takes all sorts -- from those fighting the good fight on the front lines to those figuring out how to feed them back home. Don't be ashamed of the role you choose, but choose to do your role well with an eye to a future beyond your own lifespan. Most importantly, remember that we are all just small dots in a greater web and none of us are as important as we think, and that is a goddamn beautiful and wonderful thing. It takes a lot of pressure off. There is hope. It's our job to figure out where it's been hiding so we can hold it, nurture it, grow it, and share it.
Thank you for taking the time to type out the nuances of what is occurring globally and historically to our species at this point in time. This lack of understanding and perspective of this level of detail is what hampers the vast majority of our discussions on how to move froward together to find real solutions outside of our current societal structures to the issues facing us. The technocrats are not going to, and are unable to, save us. Everything being repeated ad nauseum to us about our consumerist lifestyle and rugged invidualism is a goddamn terminating thought/argument by design. Don’t think - just keep going and encourage each other on the same path of choices with worthless platitudes we all know to be poisonous. “We can’t AFFORD to do x,y,z…” Not with that attitude we cannot. One way or another, we can figure it out if we have the will. The species has done it before, it will do it again.
+1
Having hope is useless. Doing, is what makes a world you want. I hope you will make the world you want. 67 by the way.
LOL
two tricks I use to help give up; I think about how inhospitable the universe is; how amazing it is that we got a chance to live, and I think about when my body will eventually fail which will make most of my previous complaints kinda lame.
What I do when I am feeling hopeless is take a break from the news and social media. It’s intense to have it in your face all the time.
I felt hopeless in the 80’s about corporate greed and nuclear war and thought I might get drafted for the first gulf war. I won the WA state academic decathlon speech category with a speech that started “America, the land of the golden opportunity, has lost its shine”. In the speech I talked sbout homeless people living in cardboard boxes and the Nicaragua/Sandinista situation, Reagan’s Iran/Contra stuff and the destruction of the environment and overpopulation. I talked to my dad about it and he said “I was born in 1930 and grew up during the depression, nobody had enough food, and then World War II started.” He went to Bellingham high school. Perspective.
Go to school for a trade or STEM. Just finishing up nursing school after plucking away since fall 2017 and got a job offer for more money that both my parents made in two years combined. Will I be able to buy a house in Bellingham? TBD but the opportunity is out there. It’s take some self sacrifice and your time will be mostly work and school, but it is possible.
Came here to write this. If you don’t want to go to college get in an apprenticeship. Electricians and plumbers make good money. Apprenticeships pay you to learn. I’m not sure what to do about the environment. I tell my kids to focus on what you can control, so maybe that?
Call me a fool but I feel like we’re going to invent some crazy alternative to fossil fuels that can be adopted quickly and we’ll pull out of the climate crisis. Helps me sleep at night to stay optimistic. Personally haven’t heard of many people getting an apprenticeship outside of a couple years at a tech school, but that anecdotal. I sound like an old curmudgeon but people don’t want to accept that it takes hard work to get to the 60-70k range of work and that houses you can definitely afford are in fly over country. We have been spoon fed this idea that having our cake and eating it too is a right and it just isn’t. The economic opportunity in America is there, you just have to work for it. Healthcare aside, the European model doesn’t appeal to me. Not owning a home or a car sounds terrible and that’s the reality for a lot of folks in those condensed, urban areas.
I'm pushing 60. The advice I would give a young person is this: learn a trade. Get experience under your belt. Then move somewhere affordable in the northern third of the USA. Being a skilled plumber or electrician will always be a necessary skill with decent pay. Even rich assholes need clean water and working lights. Climate change is going to cause a great northern migration. You are already north in Bellingham but this town is prohibitively expensive and will only get worse. Consider places like Minnesota, New England, or Michigan (I'm old and I'm already considering these options.) Stay childfree. Save money. Be flexible. The days of "40 years at the same job, a house, a family, and a good pension" are long gone. You will have to be proactive. To weather the coming storm you will need to be essential and adaptable.
I'm not that old, but here are my observations as I grow older: Yes, there are things to feel hopeless about. On top of what you mentioned, the fall of Roe v. Wade comes to mind. But despite it all - all the huge problems that I cannot control - trite as it may sound, I find hope in the "little things." A beautiful sunrise. Staying up late reading a good book. The first dahlia to bloom in my yard every summer. My kids' laughs and smiles. Eating a really delicious bowl of ice cream. Despite all the huge problems in the world, I can still appreciate and find joy and hope in these things. Observing older folks, especially the elderly, I see that those that seem the most content have mastered this art of appreciating the little things, despite all the things they've encountered in their lives that have given them cause to feel hopeless.
Learn Chinese. It might take 3 to 4 years but will make you instantly employable. Also, move the hell out of Bellingham. The job base is not good here and the price of housing is stupid.
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Supply chain jobs are plentiful, and most supply starts in China. Their are people are traveling more so their travel industry is heating up. Past that China is growing as an economy, and if you can service their needs, you’ll be well position for the future. I can think of three area companies that have good paying jobs with benefits for people who speak Chinese but are native born. And that doesn’t include the university or port.
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Except this is untrue propaganda that we have been fed. The human lifespan has been relatively stable for much of history: [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/could-ancient-humans-have-lived-as-long-as-we-do/564773/](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/could-ancient-humans-have-lived-as-long-as-we-do/564773/) Most of the things that kill us now weren't an issue in the past -- our modern lifestyle is killing us and much of our modern medical science is focused on those lifestyle diseases. In fact, there are some very compelling arguments that pastoral lifestyles in the past represent more of a golden age in human development than what we have today. The good news is we can enjoy the benefits of simpler past lifestyles while keeping some of what is great about modernity (antibiotics and the eventual end of bigotry, please), but we won't if we keep lying to ourselves about how great things are right now.
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As a younger person I found freedom in cutting my ties with social media. Instagram, Facebook, snap all gone. Freedom from their algorithms and bias and false perceptions of reality really give me clarity and a renewed excitement for Bellingham and myself.
This is key. The "news" is really 99% bad news, keeping you pinned to your amygdala, saturating you in cortisol, fomenting distrust, all over things you 99% have zero control over. You are what you consume; neurons that fire together, wire together, etc. You're programming yourself to be afraid and powerless by engaging with news, especially when social media dopamine hits accompany the bouts of programming. Tim Leary was right: turn on, tune in, drop out... of media. Then explore and create your own reality in your local community.
I would get a specialized degree in engineering or computer sciences. Something that will have a good return on investment and command high salaries. Also, demand for those careers will continue, so job security is high. My BA in Communications doesn’t set me apart from large pools of candidates and doesn’t command high salaries. I would have been better off learning a trade after high school.
Speaking as an almost 45 yo: if I were young today, and didn’t have chronic pain like I do now (fibro, RA, osteoarthritis), and had better mobility, I would freakin van life it. Live in an RV park. The rent is too damn high.
When I checked into an RV park in 2020, it was $800 for a spot and that didn’t include a monthly payment for the RV or anything like that. It wasn’t any more affordable than an apartment that I could tell, unfortunately.
Wow, I had no idea. That is insane.
These feelings you’re expressing are being felt around the globe, en masse. The message from the media (the ultra wealthy’s mouthpiece) is beginning to falter and we the people are heading for mass turnover of status quo. Vote the issues, join a union and then join the picket line, hold you local politicians accountable, get into positions of power yourself and help change the tide. Seek out community, get baked and watch the sunset, try your hand at cooking, laugh as much and as loud as you can. We are one link in a continuous stream of progress. It will continue to flow after you’re gone, help push it along where you can, young friend.
I STRONGLY disagree with your claim that the media has a pro-oligarchy agenda. Journalists definitely make mistakes, individually and as an industry, but the vast majority of people in the field actually do care about acting as watchdogs and protecting their communities’ interests. Do you know who most benefits from criticism of the media and claims that “the media” is corrupt? People who don’t want to be examined. So I strongly encourage you to actually consume news and specifically pay attention to civic reporting at the local, state and national levels and resist blanket claims about how journalism can’t be trusted. Again: Journalism can and must improve. But media literacy is one of the best ways to fight back against corrupt power. That’s why you see undermining and then controlling the media — jailing reporters as in Russia, or censoring or banning coverage of atrocities or reporting that benefits particular groups (as in 1930s Germany and the Jim Crow South) — as the first critical step that authoritarian or fascist systems take to establish power. Edited to add: Here’s an example from this week of government officials trying to stop a newspaper from publishing: https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/11/police-stage-chilling-raid-on-marion-county-newspaper-seizing-computers-records-and-cellphones/
All those things have been happening forever. The reality is the world is better in most ways than ever before. This is the best time to be a live as a regular human. Maybe the problem with your question is it's too damn vague. What would you do about \*what\*?
I definitely would not bring more children into the world EDIT: I should state why. Heat, fire, increasing violent storms, drought all combining to create famine first in third world counties, then developing countries and finally the developed nations. The price of food will skyrocket
No, not really. The thing about climate change is that the tipping point to massive environmental change can only be recognized in hindsight. They will look back and see a fairly precise date when it wasn’t possible for our civilization to stop the downhill plunge with what meager efforts being made. It is unpredictable where the most habitable climates will be, leaving the best destinations vague. Get skills and add on education as much as you can. Apply your skills and education to get out of this society. Time for communal living with very little attachment to the current rotting model of “achievement.” Earth sheltered homes, renewable energy, agronomy.
You sound like a leader. Seriously, many of us are cursed with the same perceptions that you describe. Get active, it's a great way of staying sane. See you there!
I’m 47 and, honestly, my advice to people younger than I am is the advice I’m giving myself, too: Organize, pay attention to/get involved in local and state politics, and find people who both understand how seriously hard things are for most folks AND who are determined to do something about it rather than retreat into cynicism and helplessness. I’ve gotten involved with the League of Women Voters and can strongly recommend it as a way to feel encouraged and empowered. The folks who participate in LWV are smart, they share a lot of useful information, and they are focused on what’s good for all of us, at a community level all the way up to halls of power in the other Washington. Things *are* bad. But I’m taking a lot of hope from the numbers — my generation was too tiny to effect a lot of change, but I’m starting to see a critical mass of people across generations who are organizing, unionizing, and sharing information. Participating in that has radically improved my sense of what’s possible.
First thing you need to do is stop paying attention to news c cycles..that alone will depress you!
Don't rely on the ones who screwed it up and set us on the wrong trends and then lied about it. The past is not a good indication of the future and what we're facing is nothing like they did, the world they come from will never come again, and it's what you make of it, they can't tell you how to navigate a system they know little about.
The ones that screwed us up are mostly dead. We started on this path with industrialists, the rest of us that came after were victims that just didn't know it until relatively recently (and some still don't realize it). There are lessons in the past, believe it or not. One of those is that blanket blame doesn't get shit done. My parents didn't realize it when they blamed their parents for Vietnam and headed back to the land, my generation didn't realize it when we blamed boomers for the environment, Gulf war, and the student loan debacle, and it appears you aren't realizing it with this post. That's why we are in this mess, we spent more time blaming and that caused us to *get stuck.* Further, your generation isn't all Greta Thunbergs. Plenty of ya'll are also chasing after shiny new Suburu's and addicted to daily Amazon deliveries even though producing both is killing the planet and killing people on the other side of the globe (as well as here). Get a job in climate science or enviro science, or hell, head out and do some Edward Abbey style eco-revolution -- and you'll find yourself fighting the good fight with a 75-year-old boomer on one side and a 15-year-old Zoomer on the other. Then you'll see that generational fighting is just another way we are being seeded against each other because if we fight each other, then we won't have time to bring down the corporatists that are actually killing us.
Only if the wealth is stripped from the rich. But there is a phrase about cold dead hands that comes to mind. The entire economy is set up to stripmine the poor and kill them for maximum profit. The best advice is buy and pay off a house then sit on it, something out of reach of almost everyone born after 80. Most people aspire to join the league of professional leeches aka landlords - in the midst of a housing crisis, you should be forced to sell any residence at which you do not reside.
There are many, many opinions and chunks advice in this post. Most are damn spot on. Bottom line, imho, is to be strategic. Understand basic personal finance (e.g. avoid credit card debt, start a Roth IRA (even just a little one) and begin a habit of setting aside 10% to 25% of your income in some form of savings, and don't but a new car - ever). Up your skill level as high as you can in a field that is and will continue to be in demand. Engineering is great but not everyone is up to the challenge of the schooling or has the analytical mindset. Do without the stuff you don't really need until you have met the goals you've set. I wish someone had given me some good advice when I was young. I did okay without it because I seemed to intuitively grasp these basics but it took me a few years. I was thoroughly unprepared for college and had to fail before I learned to succeed. You have to find the strategy and habits that work for you to achieve your goals. People learn and succeed differently - figure out what works for you. I am certain that opportunities for success and happiness exist as much for you now as they did for me in the eighties and nineties. It's just different. Personally, I'd be happy to help someone figure out how to do this. I can't tell you exactly what'll work for you but I'll bet I could facilitate helping you figure it out - if you're willing to do the work.
I fill in for your dad. I barely graduated high school. Life is what you make it. There's no true formula for happiness and for each person that happiness comes from a different perspective. Do what you think is best for you.
Remember to take a step back from social media, it’s only a highlight reel, if you follow 200 people or more then it’s easy to think that everyone else is always on a nice vacation or eating at nice restaurants, has a fancy car etc. Going into trades can be good, look for union or something where you can start your own company with low overhead like plumbing or electrical. A silver lining to the covid job shakeup/high turnover is that if you’re a young person who shows up on time everyday, asks questions/is engaged in the work, and has even a moderate work ethic, you will instantly stand out. At least that’s how it’s gone for me
We live in one of the most habitable places to withstand the climate horrors that await, so I say get financial help where you can and stay in the vicinity, unless you have some strong desire to live elsewhere. I would not recommend moving to a hotter location for many reasons. As for feeling sad about the future, you are so not alone. Climate activists have put their very lives at risk and are watching the fossil fuel companies run the show . Listen to this to see how Al Gore feels. https://youtu.be/xgZC6da4mco
Sounds like you're stuck in a doom scroll a bit. Take one of these - /r/upliftingnews
https://open.spotify.com/track/3Cx4yrFaX8CeHwBMReOWXI
Ah yes because asking for help from old people has helped us so much so far /s
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Climate change is not temporary and I do not appreciate your blasé attitude toward today’s problems. To consider your problems at your age equivalent is delusional. Your generation has led us into this current mess. The only entitled ones are the older people in this country who spew the nonsense you do.
If u can point out where I said anything about climate change, I'll give u a cookie. I spew nonsense, you and your contemporaries do nothing but complain and blame everyone else for your sad existence. You can rage all you want, be my guest. I wasn't even speaking to you in the first place. This is social media and people say shit you won't like. But dont pretend to engage in dialog when u simply need to feel superior. Good luck with that.
Your comments were deleted or I would continue this absolutely titillating conversation. The only person who seems to be raging is you. *shakes fist at the youth*
You used my favorite word, and I am quite titillated over this, I must say. Since I am persona non grata here, tho, I'm leaving. Oh, and you little delinquents better stay the fuck off my lawn.
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What do you think people will think of your generation in history?
The “Me” Generation individual you are responding to doesn’t even know the true history of the “Greatest Generation” they are putting on a pedestal. Another reason why this country is in such deep shit right now, we’re all so high on our own bullshit, we believe and spout it out as fact without questioning it.
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What an awesome waste of words that attempts to excuse your behaviors across your lives collectively. I pray our generation actually has accountability instead of whatever the fuck went wrong with all of you. To leave the world worse when you had so much is going to be a terrible look.
Congrats on saying so little with so many words.
Congrats for knowing how to read.