IT’S strange how anxiety has become such a normal part of life for people my age.
Everyone I know seems to be overthinking something—grades, jobs, money, relationships, the future. Even when we’re sitting together, laughing, there’s always that little cloud hanging some-where at the back of our minds. Maybe that’s what growing up in this time feels like: trying to stay hopeful when the world keeps giving you reasons not to.
The World Happiness Report 2024 actually puts numbers to what most of us already feel. It says younger people across the world, especially under 30, are less happy than older generations. And honestly, I get it. Here in Pakistan, it’s not much different. Every day, we scroll past bad news, economic crises, inflation, political drama, unemployment and somewhere in all that noise, it’s easy to lose faith that things will ever get better. Even though Pakistan wasn’t among the happiest nations to begin with, it still hurts to realize that our generation seems more anxious and hopeless than our parents ever were.
A big part of this comes down to financial insecurity. We’re told to dream big, but how do you dream when a decent job barely pays enough to afford rent or fuel? The pressure to “make it” feels endless, yet the opportunities are shrinking. It’s like the goalposts keep moving further away. Most of us grew up hearing stories of how our parents bought homes, started families, or built stable lives in their twenties. For us, those same things feel like a luxury, not a milestone.
Social media doesn’t make things easier either. It connects us, sure, but it also makes us painfully aware of what we don’t have. You open Instagram and see people your age travel-ing, starting businesses, or living abroad and suddenly, you start questioning every decision you’ve made. It’s exhausting, comparing yourself all the time, but it’s almost impossible not to. Then there’s the uncertainty that just hovers over everything. Whether it’s politics, the economy, or even climate issues, everything feels fragile. You can’t plan too far ahead be-cause you never know what’s coming next. That constant unpredictability eats away at whatever little optimism you have left. No wonder so many of us feel stuck, even when we’re trying our best to move forward.
But even with all this, I don’t think we’re completely lost. I’ve seen people my age doing in-credible things, starting small businesses, spreading awareness about mental health, creating art and trying to bring some good into this mess. Maybe that’s the thing about our generation: we feel deeply, maybe too deeply, but we also care enough to want change. We question, we talk and we try. Sometimes that’s all we can do.
Maybe this really is the age of anxiety. But maybe it’s also the age of awareness—the moment where we stop pretending everything’s fine and start demanding something better. Because if nothing else, we’re still here, still hoping that someday, somehow, the weight we carry now will mean something later.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Rawalpindi.
