“I love people our age; we’re so depressing,” I said to a friend, also in her early 30s.
I can’t remember what we were discussing, but I’m sure it revolved around the usual topics: saving money, spending too much money, recipes for batch-cooking that I never make, or the impropriety we witness on our commutes to the capital.
What I was referring to is a shared understanding among our particular cohort of “young millennials” that we’ve done everything right – we moved out of our hometowns, we got degrees, we’ve made steps towards building a career – but we’ve been shafted.
And it’s not a “woe-is-me” attitude, as it’s often dismissed it’s a pragmatic reaction to finding ourselves way behind our parents’ generation when it comes to “traditional markers of progress” identified in an EY report as a stable job, home ownership and the steady accumulation of wealth towards retirement.
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Many of my peers who want to stay in Ireland are making tentative plans on how to buy a house – a goal made more pressing by the sizeable chunk of our wages that is transferred to our landlords’ accounts each month.
And it’s only those with long-term partners – how dull! – or who have lived with family who can even fathom owning a property in the first place, unless you go in with a friend – which, given the roommate showdowns I’ve witnessed and/or experienced over the years – I can’t advise.
Growing up, I always thought I’d live in the city where I worked – blame Carrie Bradshaw et al – and when that turned out to be Dublin rather than the bright lights of New York city, I figured I’d have a fair chance of building a life in the capital. Fast-forward a few years, and I’m finding the path I’ve led myself down throughout my 20s has led to an expanse of desert punctuated by tumbleweed.
I now find myself trying to roll back my expectations to a life that’s more realistic and attainable.
[ I’m a millennial and serial renter, but I’ve found a way to put down rootsOpens in new window ]
With that in mind, my partner and I have come around to the idea of settling outside Dublin, where we might be a more likely to afford a house in the future. We’re at the stage of trying to set a savings figure to work towards, but the goalposts keep moving. We went from thinking we might eventually swing a two-bed newbuild with Government supports, to realising we’ll be lucky to find a terraced doer-upper that is habitable. It all seems out of reach – and that lack of control breeds apathy towards the situation and keeps us stuck where we are.
With financial pressures and the high cost of living, many people in our age bracket find it hard to find fulfilment within their jobs, with many creative and educational posts and those in non-profits paying too low to live off while renting in a city, or a commutable distance from one, where most of those types of job are based.
This lack of control has led young millennials to focus on aspects of life that are within our control, and that comes down to how we spend our free time. We are into our passions, whatever they may be. I know voracious readers, screenplay writers, artists, film aficionados, hikers, cyclists and actors, all of whom find joy and meaning in what they love, even though they’re not getting paid for it.
Without the traditional milestones, perhaps we’re freer than the generations that went before us. We are not as restricted to tick off arbitrary boxes, and Gen Z are even freer again.
The position we are in also precludes one-upmanship as we’re all pretty much in the same boat and doing our best not to sink.
And doesn’t it stand to reason, for people who lived through a pandemic just as they stepped out into the world, that our idea of success and happiness has shifted? We have inherited the perceived wisdom that measures such as wealth and success in a traditional sense have never made anyone happy.
Maybe, if I could, I’d go back to my student self and tell her to be a bit more realistic, to aim for a slower paced life outside of a city – but there’s no way she would have listened.
