It’s not an uncommon realization that being in one’s 20s is kind of fucking hell. Looming student loan payments. We need to find jobs that probably have nothing to do with our majors, because jobs in our majors barely exist anymore (thanks a lot, technical revolution!). The job market is scarce. Applications go out, maybe 50, maybe a 100 of them without so much as a “fuck you” in return as a response. We want to go out and forget about our troubles with our friends (drinking), but we don’t really have money to do so because of rent and a pesky thing called eating.
We’re all going through this right now. It’s life, it’s our reality. We have high highs and low lows. As we think about ourselves and where our individual futures are going, we must also be sympathetic to the paths of our friends and their complex yet relatable feelings and freak outs.
Crying and screaming irrationally about our futures is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s a really good release to get out all of your frustrations with jobs, relationships and social lives.
If it happens to you, hopefully there is a nice friend around or nearby a phone who can listen and help you talk things out. If it happens to a friend, remember to listen. Sometimes we can be so wrapped up in our own problems that we forget the complexities that our closest friends are living too. It’s so important to really listen to your friends. Sometimes all we need is to feel that someone is listening to us. Plus, maybe you’ll realize that your problems pale in comparison after hearing that a friend is pregnant/got fired/has AIDS/likes meth. Relativity bitches.
Parents
From talking to many of my friends, I’ve concluded that Will Smith was soooo right. Parents just don’t understand.
“Just get a job” is probably the most common thing said from parent to child during these rough economic and 20s-ish times. Even though mass layoffs after the crash in 2008 affecting many people of our parents age, and maybe even some of your parents, a disconnect os present in the dialogue concerning 20 something jobs and their futures.
Nobody is having a blast monetarily right now, except the 1 percenters (you jerkfaces!) and the people who think they’ll be the 1 percenters someday (idiots) but will instead be middle tier management 4 life (Ha!). Parents retirement funds that have been hit or dwindled, coupled with an unemployed child who is an educated adult is a heavy economic burden. It’s understandable that some parents, much like Hannah’s parents in HBO’s Girls, don’t want to fund their child’s 20s. They’ve worked hard and want to finally have some things to themselves. I mean, I want to travel the world when I hit retirement age, and maybe have a beach house or something dammit!
Being able to understand both our parents economic situation and their lives as individuals as well as our post-grad struggles in a country where job creation is a serious fucking problem is key to getting through this whole mess alive.
2PF 
I read and think about this topic so often that in some ways, reading all the badness of our generation is almost worse than living it. Sure, it sucks to send out 50 resumes sans “fuck you,” but I normally shrug my shoulders to the looming but vague “hard times” and move on. When I started reading all the specifics and various facets about how much our life is and probably will suck for the foreseeable future, that’s when the spiralling pit of clinical depression (that can’t be medicated due to lack of insurance) sets in. I’d say we should all hike out to a barren Canadian wilderness and start a new civilization, but I think the lack of Facebook would be a major societal crippler.
Ok… so you have acknowledged some of the realities of being your 20’s. How are you going to do things different? How are you doing to make sure that this f’d up system you’ve graduated into isn’t going to bring you down and define you?
You have an awesome opportunity in front of you. I’m not bsing either. See most people do what you’re doing and they take the world gives them and they go on. One day the wake up and realize they have choices. They can think different and they don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. You’re right… our parents don’t get it. The world they grew up in is not the world you’re living in. There is truly opportunity out there if you willing to be creative… innovative… and think different. Define your future… don’t let the world define it for you. Only you can make this happen!
The world rewards certain thoughts, emotions, and actions. It ignores and punishes others. It’s up to you to figure this out for yourself and this is the time to do it!
Good luck!