upworthy

burnout

A woman is feeling major burnout.

Freddie Smith is a popular TikToker and host of The Freddie Smith Podcast, where he talks a lot about income inequality and finance from a down-to-earth perspective. One of Freddie’s biggest topics of focus is how the younger generations, millennials and Gen Z specifically, have it a lot harder than their Gen X and baby boomer counterparts. Recently, he described why he believes the younger generations feel so burned out: They are spinning their wheels and not getting ahead because of the rising cost of living. This counters the boomer notion that young people are entitled and lazy.

“They're working 40 hours a week, but at the end of the month, they have nothing to show for it. So if you're not making any progress and you look back five years and go, damn, I made $300,000 in the last five years or I made $400,000 in the last five years and I have nothing,” Freddie says. “If, anything, I have $25,000 in debt, that's gonna create burnout cause you feel like you just put in 5 years of work and have nothing to show for it.”

@fmsmith319

Why Millennials and Gen Z are facing burnout

Freddie adds that the younger generation's inability to get ahead leaves them constantly strained. They are stuck in apartments and can’t grow their families, or if they do, they don’t have the same quality of life that they were raised with.

“It's the 30% increase in rent prices where people are spending 40% of their money on rent, you're still being taxed 20, 25, 30%. People just don't have any money,” Freddie adds. “People aren't having kids, and they're unable to start families. People are struggling financially, fighting financially, and suffering in relationships. This is all decline in living standards.”

stressed woman, stressed millennial, financial stress, burnout, gen z stress, young womanA young woman is stressed about her future.via Canva/Photos

Feddie’s numbers are backed up by research, and the biggest significant issue that younger generations face is the price of home ownership. Adjusted for inflation, in 1985, the average home cost $96,985 in today's money. However, the average price of a home today is a whopping $426,100. Rent is a little better, but still tough. The average rent in 1985 cost $1,031 in today’s dollars; in 2023, the average rent is $1,406.

In a video published in November 2024, Freddie did the opposite and shared five reasons baby boomers had it much easier than millennials and Gen Zers.

  1. You could buy a house for 30 to fifty thousand dollars
  2. Union jobs were more prevalent
  3. College actually worked
  4. Social Security was actually strong
  5. The invention of 401(k)s
@fmsmith319

Why Millennials and Gen Z have it harder today compared to boomers

“The boomers always come at us and say ‘Why are you saying it was easy I was living paycheck to paycheck. You don't realize how hard it was.’ Look at all the advantages you had and how hard it still was,” Freddie says. “Think about the kids today, they cannot buy a house, union jobs aren't available, college is completely out of whack. They're spending 80 grand to get a job for $50,000. It's backwards.”

Freddie makes a strong case for millennial and Gen Z burnout. Because, face it, there’s nothing more exhausting than grinding away at something and not moving an inch. At the same time, things only become harder. Rent goes up. A carton of eggs is $8; if you are fortunate to have money in a 401k, it no longer feels safe. “Humans are good at adapting,” Freddie concludes his video. “But there's a fine line between adapting and being taken advantage of. And I think we're being taken advantage of.”

As a former CIA military analyst, Cindy Otis has faced some incredibly difficult situations.

"For most of my career as a CIA military analyst and manager, I was around negative or disturbing content," Otis writes in an email. "It was my job to look at security issues — such as political instability, war, and terrorism — in foreign countries and help senior U.S. government officials think through what they could do about them. It was important in my career to find ways of coping with the deluge of information so that I could be useful to the federal government while still maintaining my humanity."

Photo courtesy of Cindy Otis.


For Otis, who's also a lifelong disability advocate, checking out of politics has never been an option — but she's found a balance.

She also knows that not everyone has her background or training.

With more and more of us feeling dismayed by the 24-hour-news cycle — do we talk about anything else anymore? — Otis decided to share her knowledge to help other people.

She released a tweetstorm of how to handle depressing news and not only still be able to function, but persevere.

It went viral.

First, she validated the fact that being inundated with negative content is bad for our minds and our health. ‌‌

Then Otis provided ideas for action. She says she wanted to help people make progress without giving in to the instinct to shut down. Finding a balance maintaining awareness and action and still caring for yourself is tricky.

"I wanted to chart a pathway forward for people to work through those feelings so they can still take action," Otis says. "Ultimately, I hope it will keep people from checking out. Ignorance and apathy are two key things that got our country to this point."

You can't be "checked in" all the time. Getting overloaded won't help move the needle of progress.

Finding balance is key.

For Otis, a part of that balance is not following the president on Twitter. "Being outraged at each new tweet from him sucks up valuable energy," she says, "when what we need to be worried about are things like the chipping away of our government institutions, lack of action from the GOP to prevent foreign inference in our country's affairs, and shifts in government policy on everything from the environment to immigration."

But we also can't just focus on the negative, she emphasizes. There's so much progress being made and so many ways for everyone to get involved in the change we want to see.

After two weeks of wall-to-wall politics, we are all this baby seal being rescued from a fishing net in Australia:

Since the conventions began last Monday, it feels like we've been trapped in an endless loop of cable news kibitzing, longwinded speeches, and arguments with friends and family on social media — a feeling not unlike being tangled in a rope with no means of escape.

All images via ViralHog/YouTube.


Then, as if by magic, Friday morning rolled in, like a friendly Aussie with a bowie knife.

And cut us all free.

Sending us galloping full force into the weekend with the RNC and DNC safely behind us.

Politics are important, but they're not everything.

A well-informed citizenry is essential to a functioning democracy. But a citizenry that spends too much time watching CNN and refreshing Twitter is an exhausted citizenry. A cranky citizenry. A citizenry that needs to bike over to the Y, do some laps in the pool, and take a nap.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

So this weekend, let's take some time off. We've earned it.

Read a book. Play a board game. Tell your children you love them.

Be free, America!

Happy weekend.