It feels like no matter where I turn some septuagenarian, or older, is making life miserable for myself and others. Usually these are older white Christian conservatives, obsessed with a delusional sense of reality that no longer has a basis in fact, or perhaps never did.
There is a disproportionate amount of wealth concentrated in the older generation and those who will inherit it will probably be even worse with that money than the last generation. Certainly we see evidence of that already, anyone in their 30’s who has parents who help them out VS those who don’t have that have radically different outcomes. For some reason those lucky enough to come from good families ascribe laziness and bad attitude to those who don’t have the family support, as if they are somehow enjoying “self made success” while mummy does their laundry for them.
No generation previous needed this kind of assistance well into adulthood, but this infantilisation of working adults has happened because of the hoarding of wealth, refusing to pass on the torch in workplaces and just blocking change for the sake of stoking petty politics. Most of us will never own our own home but all the politicians want to talk about is whether it’s OK to dehumanise trans people or not.
I’m 36 this year. For most of my teens I thought there’d be some kind of tipping point where the conservative boomers would fuck off or at least let the next generation step in, but that hasn’t happened. Back in the 1990’s you could be a girl and wear jeans and be empowered, now this is considered some kind of woke statement. As if we recently invented this idea of women and men being equal.
The faces of my two dogs, my cat and my husband are all that keep me going. Knowing they need me gives me just enough to get out of bed in the morning and start moving… but I’m struggling to do even that without having a breakdown. My husband and I have medical expenses we can’t afford and are borrowing money to survive right now. I run my own business and just feel this immense pressure on my shoulders, that again is compounded by how unfair the world is right now.
Anyone got any advice for coping with this late stage capitalist hellscape?
Owning your own business and self employment are kind of not specifically designed to thrive in this kind of economy. Unless you and/or your business have a prospect being bought out by a competitor you might be burdening yourself with an unnecessary degree of stress.
It can be stressful to run your own business if your livelihood depends on it.
Now this depends heavily on what kind of business you run too and how much you enjoy it.
We’re a home studio that makes websites, software and digital media. I’ve thought about temporarily accepting a job but I fear that would just compromise my mental health to the point where I can’t work at all.
In Australia we IT people get paid about half what our USA colleagues make, our expertise is treated with revulsion, even though it’s critical, and people act like our neurodivergent/introvert personality types are a hindrance to a successful and productive work environment.
I love what I do, but I’d sooner stack supermarket shelves than go back to being some corrupt conservative dickheads golden ticket, again.
Consider getting a job even if you don’t like it. You can always quit if it’s unbearable. The increase in income will help your financial struggles.
What is the public service sector like is AUS? In the US there is kind of a large void left from boomers retiring and gen X not working public sector. It is leaving a lot of vacancies in local governments across the country which are all traditionally pretty low pace, decently compensated, with pensions and benefits.
Where I am these jobs are promoting up to 90% teleworking capabilities as well. There is a whole generation of vacancies pretty much in the US and I wonder if AUS is similar at all.
All IT people in Australia are defective?