We Don’t Want to Do This for the Next 40 Years
Somewhere in our first few months of working, we all have that one moment when we stop and think, wait, is this actually my life now? we wake up, get ready, travel to work, stare at a screen for eight hours, attend meetings where people discuss things that could have been emails, come home tired, scroll through our phones, and go to sleep. Then we do it again.
And somehow, we’re supposed to call this a career.
The funny thing is, most of us spent years trying to get here. We wanted the job, the salary, the independence. We imagined how good it would feel to finally earn our own money and not have to ask anyone before buying something we liked.
And it does feel good. For a while.
Then one random Tuesday, we’re sitting in a meeting listening to someone say, “Let’s circle back on this,” and we start wondering how many more times we’re going to hear that sentence before we die.
We look at the people around us. Some have been doing this for ten years. Some maybe for twenty. They have their routines, their office friendships, their preferred coffee orders. They know how to survive a Monday morning without looking completely miserable.
And we can’t help thinking: How did they accept this? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they just got used to it. That’s what scares us a little. Not the work itself, but how easily an entire life can become a routine we never consciously chose.
We start noticing how often people say they’ll travel when they have more money, rest when things get less busy, or pursue something they love when the timing is right. There’s always a promotion to get, another financial goal, another year that probably isn’t the best time to make a change.
And before we know it, we’re planning to enjoy our lives somewhere in the distant future, as if we’re saving them for later.
Gen Z seems particularly uncomfortable with that deal. We grew up watching people burn out, watching layoffs happen to employees who gave companies their best years, and watching strangers online build lives outside the traditional office routine. We know stability matters. We just aren’t entirely convinced that spending forty years in a job guarantees it.
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So what do we do now….we play along, obviously. We update our LinkedIn profiles, pretend to understand every acronym, and learn how to look interested during meetings. We even start using phrases we used to make fun of.
But somewhere in the back of our minds, there’s another plan.
Maybe we’ll freelance. Maybe we’ll start something of our own. Maybe we’ll save enough to work less. Or maybe we haven’t figured it out yet, and that’s precisely the problem.
We don’t necessarily want to become millionaires or retire on a beach at thirty. Some of us just want a little more control over our time. We want to be able to take a walk on a Wednesday afternoon without feeling guilty. We want hobbies that don’t need to become businesses and weekends that aren’t spent recovering from the previous five days.
It sounds like a very small request for a life that is supposed to be ours.
Of course, leaving isn’t as easy as posting a dramatic resignation video and walking into the sunset. Rent exists. Families have expectations. Bills have absolutely no interest in our existential crises.
So we stay. We work, save what we can, and try to figure things out without making our lives unnecessarily difficult.
But the question doesn’t disappear.
Is this what we’re going to do until we’re sixty?
Maybe the answer will look different for everyone. Some of us will eventually leave corporate life. Some will find jobs we genuinely enjoy. Some will change our minds entirely.
For now, we just know that we don’t want to wake up one day and realize we’ve spent our entire lives waiting for the weekend.
Tomorrow, we’ll probably open our laptops and attend the same meetings. We’ll nod when someone mentions our long-term growth trajectory. We’ll do what needs to be done.
But we’re also thinking about the life outside that office. And maybe, for now, that’s where it begins.
