(And What They Can Do About It)
It is common knowledge that Millennials are constantly stressed and much more prone to depression than their parents’ generation. In one survey, half of millennials (between 24 and 39 in age) claimed they’d left their jobs for mental health reasons (i.e. from burnout). Compared with just 20 per cent among the general population, that number is disconcertingly high.
Pundits generally attribute this phenomenon to the following circumstances:
- Lack of financial prospect: Owing a lot (of student debt), owning nothing with diminishing chances of ever owning anything (thanks to asset prices rapidly escalating out-of-reach from incessant money printing by the Federal Reserve). That does not make for a hopeful and cheerful prospect of starting one’s own independent life.
- Absence of romance: Lack of disposable income and living in the basement of one’s parents’ home makes romancing difficult. Absence of romance makes life less exciting and more lonely and depressing.
- Unfulfilling jobs: Millennials find themselves in a very different job environment than their parents’. Gone are the IBMs and HPs that groomed employees for advancement and lifetime employment. In place is a “gig economy” in which the relationship between employers and employees is a cold, hard, short-term contract, at risk of ending abruptly. In highly automated workplaces, employees even have to “compete” with robots. All this lends to stress.
- Different Values: Millennials constitute the most educated generation, coming of age in a time of global uncertainties that begs the question “What’s life all about?” even more than the Hippies ’60s. They’ve seen their parents go through the shenanigans of Enron, Madoff, and Lehman Brothers. Many of them wind up with broken families. It’s no wonder they don’t trust The Establishment and its institutions. It’s only natural they question traditional “values” and career/life paths. Confusion and doubt in turbulent times complicate life with stress.
- Low Self Esteem: This is a biggie! Some Millennials, as young teens, were rushed to psychiatrists at the slightest sign of emotional irregularity, subsequently labeled as having disorder with some fancy name, and prescribed medication. Now as adults, they don’t think of themselves as “normal” and able to handle stress. Chalk this up as a generational misfortune of caring parents (and over-zealous shrinks?) being duped by Big Pharma.
Millennials themselves cannot control any of these circumstances. It is the hand they are dealt. But I opine there are underlying psychological factors that Millennials can address to minimize stress and depression. There are ways they can win with the hand they are dealt.
First, recognize that stress does not start in the workplace. Some universities cite 35% of their students experience stress-induced panic attacks during their college stay. Almost all major universities have mental health advisers on campus, most of whom overwhelmed by case loads of sharply rising incidents of anxiety and depression. This is unheard of when I went to university. My (Boomer) generation was just as pushed to achieve and excel as the Millennials. I recall only one case of mental breakdown among my fellow students in all four years. So what gives?
One popular explanation is the “snowflake” thesis — that Millennials had been coddled by helicopter parents which impeded early development of independence and mental resilience. Millennials were so used to being rewarded for effort that they weren’t allowed to fail and learn from failing. This is probably why the slightest setbacks evoke so much angst in the university and work environment. Many have made the observation that Millennials tend to recoil even from constructive criticism. That is just too “thin skinned” to be an effective adult. Indeed, “adulting” is a verb the Millennial themselves made up in admission of their own slowness to embrace adulthood. Milestones of adulthood, — such as getting a driver’s license, marriage, family formation, — each a rite of passage serving a life purpose, are overlooked by Millennials (in great part because of the difficult circumstances they face, granted), to the detriment of their personal growth.
Fear of failure is symptomatic of “not being equipped to handle failures”. This manifests itself in decision-making anxiety. Faced with big choices outside their domain of familiarity, of significant consequences, or simply having too many choices, Millennials, — especially those who unfortunately got labeled as young teens as having mental disorder — easily become overwhelmed. They either face “analysis paralysis” or feel inept. So they defer the decision. For decisions that have to be made sooner or later, anxiety builds with the passage of time, leading to depression (and the need for therapy).
Millennials who give credence to this thesis need to heed it and develop mental resilience, albeit belatedly. They need to lose any sense of entitlement from being coddled as children. Their parents and society meant well in being overly protective, but it produced lack of tolerance (for adversity, even dissent) and resilience. They need to be far less sensitive and develop some “thick skin” (i.e. let criticism roll off their backs without their feelings being hurt). Those unfortunately diagnosed as having mental disorder need to reassess themselves now as adults (they may pleasantly find themselves normal after all!). Try to embrace, rather than avoid, making tough decisions. Very few decisions in life are truly absolute and final. One door closed is another opened. “Mistakes” can turn out to be blessings in disguise. At a minimum, they are opportunities for learning and becoming better (one learns from one’s mistakes, not one’s successes). Good decision-making is premised upon understanding of one’s (present and near future) needs and one’s genuine beliefs and values. Beyond that, there is no sense in obsessing with hypothetical “what-if”s in a highly uncertain world.
Second, there is the hyper self-awareness Issue. Millennials grew up in the zenith of social networks and online information flow. This made them hyper self-aware, both in terms of physical and mental health, and more frivolous things like appearance and image. In some ways, this is good (one has to be aware of a problem like mental health before one can address it). But this can also be bad (self absorption and hypochondria — amplifying health problems to epic proportions). Being less self-centered, even a little less self-aware may ameliorate the (self-amplified) suffering.
Third, there is the Peter Pan syndrome. Millennials spend a good deal of their waking hours living in video game fantasy lands. I interpret this as an escape mechanism and reason that it is far better than seeking refuge in substance abuse (thanks to Millennials’ health consciousness). The downside is, the less time one spends in reality, the less one gets better at living it. Spend enough time playing video games and one risks being able to live only in fantasy and not in reality at all. I suspect this is a bigger trap than most Millennials realize. They must become more aware of it, and find a way out of it.
Fourth, there is the team Orientation. Millennials, despite being a more diverse generation than their parents’, are remarkably open with their emotions, deeply empathetic, and team-oriented. These admirable traits will come in handy when it comes time to rebuild institutions and society at large. But in the interim when Millennials struggle to find themselves and their place in society, the same traits compromise independence and self sufficiency. Excessive empathy, in particular, can get one so wrapped up in a peer’s misery that one’s own problem gets amplified so oneself eventually becomes just as miserable. Productivity as well as mental health are, therefore, a direct result of one’s peer support group. The wrong support group can add to one’s anxiety, whereas the the right support group can lift one from anxiety. Choosing wisely is more vital for Millennials than their individualistic parents who were less influenced by peers.
Finally, and perhaps most crucially, there is social media’s impact. In my previous article Beware Social Media, I amply declared my wariness of social media. Smartphones, — the main “terminal” device for social media, — have radically altered the nature of social interactions, to the detriment of mental health, I would argue. Time on the phone alone in one’s bedroom is not a substitute for in-personal high-touch interaction. Spending time on one’s phone while out on a date defeats the purpose of dating. The more globally “connected” one is on the phone, the more isolated one is locally. The reason is simple: Virtual connection is not real. It is contrived, superficial, even phony, — no different than living in fantasy worlds in video games. Millennials, who succumb to peer influence far more than their parents, can do well spending far less time on social media.
We the Boomers were blessed with decades of “plenty” (again, thanks to asset inflation from ever-escalating money printing since 1987, which allowed for wealth-building). Unfortunately, good times are turning bad and Millennials are headed into “time to pay the piper”. Think of Boomers as living out their productive lives in a house (the Establishment) and that house is now crumbling. Millennials don’t have the luxury of continuing to live in the same house; their challenge is to tear down and rebuild it. Put another way, Boomers lived their productive years in evolutionary times (they could prosper by wisely evolving) but Millennials live in revolutionary times (and must think and act accordingly in order to prosper). They cannot simply copy their parents’ playbook.
Millennials have a tougher job. In order to tackle it, they first have to toughen up their characters because their characters (more so than their education) will be key to their success. The first step is to learn how to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and bounce back every time they fall, — just like high performance athletes do. Athletes suffer countless failures on the road to success, but they don’t wallow in profound sadness or lingering sense of despair.
Millennials’ revolutionary effort, with demonstrable success and accelerating momentum, is best illustrated in the Crypto-space, via their “DeFi” projects aimed to upend a predatory banking industry. What this effort needs is for Millennial cohorts to work within the Establishment (e.g. Congress) to change policies and laws in tandem. To that end, we need more Millennial change-agents like AOC to replace aging Boomers. Ironically, I say this despite disagreeing with some of her beliefs, — because I believe in change and Millennial Power!
