Another young lady has taken to the internet to bemoan the difficulties of being a young woman stuck in a full-time job she can't stand, only to find herself unable to afford the life she claims she was promised after getting her fancy college degree. (And if you're a blue collar dude out there reading this, consider taking a deep breath before hitting "play.")
"Has anyone else out there just like, worked your ass off for like the last three or four years to get, like, a college degree, and now you've got a job that you hate and you still can't afford life, and you're still f**king miserable, you can't pay any of your bills and you can't live in the house that you imagined and you just feel lied to? Because you thought that if you just went to college and you got a degree that you could afford to buy a house and like, things that make you happy, and yet you still can barely afford groceries?" she sobs.
She has a college degree and a job she despises, and she feels lied to because she can’t even afford basic necessities like groceries, let alone the dream of owning a house, which now seems like an unattainable pipe dream pic.twitter.com/Bdp8T8bGrB
— wilder😎🇺🇸 (@wilderpatriot) February 22, 2024
The young woman goes on to say she laid in bed all weekend because she couldn't afford to go do anything before asking if anyone else has ever felt this way.
Related: 'I'm Not Made For This': Gen Zer Breaks Down Sobbing Over 40-Hour Work Week
Speaking as a 35-year-old Millennial with a college degree who lived off Ramen and clipped a crapload of coupons in her early 20s, but who now owns a nice home in a gated neighborhood with a pretty SUV parked in her driveway, I have a few thoughts.
Thought the first: get married. Trying to hack life on your own? Not a formula for success. Is that the exact opposite of everything you’ve ever been told about your post-college 20s? Yep. But people were not created to struggle through life as single beings. Wrap your mind around long-term commitment. Stop buying the line that families are for people in their 30s after all the oats have been sown. Find a solid guy. Get married.
Secondly, that house you say “you imagined” that somehow just isn’t attainable? What’s it look like? Is it a 1980s ranch with two bedrooms and a closed floorplan well outside a city? No? Might wanna rethink your standards. That two-story four-bedroom with hardwood floors and a vaulted ceiling can absolutely be in your future - but you’re probably not gonna buy it at 23. And if that’s your benchmark for satisfaction, I’m afraid you’re setting yourself up for some pretty epic disappointment. Cut a few thousand pb&js on a chipped lamenate countertop and call it a start.
Lastly, were you lied to? Absolutely.
You were lied to by whoever told you that you needed a $150k degree from a four-year college to make a good salary, only to spend the next two decades paying it back with interest.
You were lied to by whoever convinced you to chase your career instead of the stability and comfort of a family.
You were lied to by whoever convinced you that a big city is the be-all-end-all of social bliss.
And you’re most certainly being lied to by a government that purports to care about you and your hopes and dreams, only to enact policies that drive up housing prices, fuel inflation, and make it nigh on impossible for young people just starting out in life to get their feet under them. Wanna know why housing prices suck and your that expensive degree hanging on your wall doesn’t seem to be paying off? Left-wing environmental policies and government red tape have an awful lot to do with it. (That, and potentially your monthly GrubHub bill.)
The simple fact? The world was built by people who at one point or another barely had two nickels to rub together, and they did it without Daddy Government giving them a leg up, or crying into an iPhone.
Change your priorities, rethink your standards, and rework your strategy.
And for the love of all that is holy, stop wasting time sobbing on TikTok about it.