As an older Gen Z'er, sometimes I find it difficult not to compare myself and where I am in life to my peers. For example, I know many people my age who are either traveling the world, having kids, or in extremely successful positions in their line of work, or all three. I feel like, especially with social media nowadays, there's an expectation that you're supposed to be at a specific place in life by this point — but quite frankly, that's just not realistic for everybody, especially since everyone moves through life at different paces.
So, to showcase that there's no real timeline to follow and that someone else's circumstances don't invalidate or define your own, I sought Gen Z'ers from the BuzzFeed Community who were willing to share their lives with me and highlighted their individual experiences.
So, Internet, welcome to Gen Z Journals.
This week: Meet Courtney (she/her), a 23-year-old from Rockwall, Texas. The remainder of this post will be from her POV.
I'm an optician for an independent eyecare professional and am getting paid $18.50/hr. I've been in the eyecare industry for five years, but I've been in my current position for seven months!
We spend around $300 to $400 per week. My husband and I are in a fortunate situation where we do not have to pay rent or utilities because we live with my in-laws. In a given week, we most likely spend $50 to $70 on takeout, $200 on a big expense like doctor visits or car insurance, $40 on gas, and $50 on occasional hygiene products or groceries since we don't typically buy most of our own.
My financial situation is stable enough, but it could not sustain my husband and me on our own. The hopes of owning a home, setting aside a sufficient amount of money for end-of-life needs, or supporting children in the ways our parents have supported us — like paying for college — are not exactly alive. I don't want to be a downer, but I just don't see how some of these things will happen. I want to learn how to manage and invest our finances well, but I don't know where to start.
When others complain that "Gen Z doesn't want to work," I immediately cringe. I wrestle with this concept continually. Every generation has individuals who don't want to work, but I just don't see how that is the majority for my generation.
What I do see, though, is a generation of young people who mostly don't have an interest in sacrificing their families, rest, and passions for ladder climbing. I don't know what the answer is and I don't want to seem ungrateful for the job and benefits I do have, but something has to give when we're making minimum wage to float among several different positions at work, have 5–10 sick and PTO days combined, and we're made to feel guilty for using anything in our benefits package. I truly believe that if staff members were better supported and had the opportunity to rest more, employers would have more hard-working and long-term employees on their hands.
If I get a full night's sleep, I typically sleep from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., which is roughly nine hours. But recently, I've been struggling with insomnia and only sleep three to four hours a night. Once my alarm goes off at 7 a.m., I typically doze in and out of sleep for another hour.
I am married to my husband. My husband and I both struggle with mental health, yet somehow, it often works out that when one of us is down, the other is up. We hope to both be "up" at some point, but in the meantime, this blessing allows us to take care of the other's physical and emotional needs while they're struggling. This looks like making meals or snacks, picking up the slack on chores, giving hugs, or just sitting together in the same room while we do our own thing.
We don't have marriage figured out in the slightest, nor do we really have many friends as individuals or as a couple. I still struggle tremendously with loneliness, and my anxiety often tells me that my friends have rejected me, but when I'm brave enough to call them, I always learn that rejection is never the case.
A big change I am continuing to grapple with is that my husband and I moved from our hometown in North Carolina to the Dallas-Forth Worth area of Texas. This move occurred in January 2023, but I am continuing to face the consequences of our move, like making friends, finding a decent job, and learning how to live with my in-laws. We moved because we needed support from my husband's family while he focused on his mental health following a hospitalization.
Currently, I am facing my own anxiety and depression. As if my answers were not evidence enough, I struggle to find enjoyment in my relationships, work, or hobbies. I'm seeing a psychiatrist and have been seeing a counselor off and on, but even with consistent treatment, I'm struggling to get past low thoughts regarding my self-worth and my future. I hope I will hold onto faith and see a breakthrough in my mental health in 2024. I also hope we can move back to North Carolina by the end of the year.
I think I would feel more supported by my community if I let them. Community is a tricky subject. I feel supported by my parents and in-laws, I feel close to my brother, and I know I have many out-of-state friends I can call upon, but I have a natural tendency to isolate when I'm struggling, so I don't think I'm utilizing all the support I have. I'm experiencing the growing pains of becoming an adult, and it's embarrassing and scary to hand that experience over to others. So, I know I have some people, but many are far away, and I struggle to initiate contact by phone or text.
My husband and I also desire to make friends who are like-minded in our faith, and if it wasn't already difficult to find adult friends, it is tremendously difficult when you add the component of faith. I find that the individuals that I want to draw close to and share the same faith as I do are not open to vulnerability or committed to putting time into a friendship — especially when marriages and children come into the picture. Everyone in Western culture seems only to show what's on the surface of their lives and draw away once any relationship attempts to step below the surface.
I absolutely feel like that. I married young, didn't finish college, and started a full-time job soon after dropping out. In some ways, I felt proud for being so grown up in comparison to my peers, but as they began to graduate college and pursue graduate degrees or high-earning jobs, I soon felt inadequate. Although I'm not using social media currently, I used it off and on until the spring of 2023. During that time, it was difficult not to feel like a failure when others posted perfectly filtered pictures about their degrees, internship opportunities, lavish weddings, and children. In comparison, I felt like some low-life working an entry-level job who couldn't get themselves together enough not to feel anxious about everything. I know that's a little low, but it gives me hope that others feel like I do.
I know logically that my peers are struggling just as much as I am, but something about a reel on Instagram filmed with an expensive camera makes me feel like I'm falling behind. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I don't know how to do marriage well, I don't know how my husband and I will be able to prepare for our lives financially, and I don't know how to improve my mental health. But I'm trying.
Life is really not that glamorous right now, but I'm not quitting. And that's what matters.
If you relate to any of these stories or if you're interested in hearing stories from more people, let me know in the comments below! If you have a Gen Z Journal of your own to share, you can fill out this short form with just the basics. We'll be in touch to discuss it further if your story is a fit.
Note: This submission has been edited for length and/or clarity.