Quite easy to say when you already have the momentum of a career and net worth. Much harder to sincerely believe when you're crushed with student loans, have no

Quite easy to say when you already have the momentum of a career and net worth. Much harder to sincerely believe when you're crushed with student loans, have no savings, and career prospects are utterly depressing if you weren't fortunate enough to be raised in an environment that pushed you to set your life up properly from the get-go. There are no guarantees and the odds are harrowing. Software engineering could completely dry up tomorrow. Then what? The professions that make any sort of thriving wage and have some semblance of career stability (medicine, finance, etc.) all have stringent gatekeeping pedigree requirements. What's left? Sales? Restarting in a trade where all the incumbents have been doing manual labor since they were in middle school, and you're no longer as youthful and full of vigor as you once were? Grind out for 10 years to get a foothold in the industry, and your body's breaking down, but now you have a shot at starting your own business instead of getting paid $60k/yr (disregarding backbreaking overtime) to do shit work. Great, you're 40 now and all of the economic tribulations you've faced means your retirement accounts are severely lacking. You will never retire and will have to keep on working until you die (either naturally or on the job). Healthcare: costs are going to go up. Housing: you never got the chance to own, so now you're stuck burning money renting. Inflation: everything is more expensive, but compensation hasn't grown with it. Or more poignantly: can you keep on grinding forever? With all of the young bucks that come into this field with the drive to "make a name for themself" and reinvent the wheel ad nauseam. Can you keep up, old man? You're one psychological accident away from being unable to put bread on the table. Then what? Disability? Living in halfway houses because you can't pay rent anymore? Being surrounded by people who've fallen on hard times who can do nothing but drag you down with them? That's when you spiral further into a hole you can never get yourself out of. You're fucked. I don't expect to live like my parents, but I won't pretend that life is not utterly and depressingly precarious. Lucky are the middle-aged and older; for they had grown up in utter blissful ignorance of things. Woe is the hyper-connected youth; unable to simply exist.