5 Things Giving Me Anxiety As A Younger Millennial  

Every day, it becomes harder and harder not to think that maybe, just maybe, millennials picked the worst time to be born. In my 33 years, I’ve witnessed 9/11, the Great Recession, the election of Donald Trump, a pandemic, the inexplicable second election of Donald Trump, and now it appears that the war in Iran is leading to yet another recession. 

With all that in mind, it’s unsurprising that fewer and fewer people are optimistic about the future, myself included. So today I thought I’d share with you, lovely folks, the five things that give me the most anxiety as a younger millennial. 

The Job Market

As someone who has experienced firsthand the stress and frustration that comes with being laid off, the current labor market does not inspire much confidence. It was incredibly hard to find a job after I was laid off in the Fall of 2022. The days of having faith that the job you’re applying for actually exists are long gone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve interviewed for a job, been told they’ve gone with another candidate, only to see the same job posted on LinkedIn the very next day. This is a fun new trend called “ghost jobs,” where employers will post job listings for roles they aren’t actually hiring for to make it look like the company is growing. 

While I was lucky to have a phenomenal work mom in NewsOne Managing Editor Monique Judge, who helped me obtain this gig, many people I know aren’t as lucky. I have friends who’ve been laid off several times and are having to navigate a market filled with ghost jobs. While recent job numbers look good on paper, it’s hard not to wonder how many of the newly added jobs don’t actually exist. 

I think anyone who’s been through a layoff will tell you that it’s hard to ever feel fully secure in any job that follows, especially knowing how much of a struggle it is to simply get a job.  

The Cost Of Living

Adding to my anxieties about the job market is the rising cost of living. Between rent, gas prices, health care, and food, simply affording the essentials is becoming more of a struggle. When it becomes a struggle to simply afford the basics, it’s hard to really be optimistic about the future. While I tentatively have a list of goals I’d like to accomplish for the next year, it’s hampered by the fact that I have no idea how expensive life is going to get as a result of the doddering bum sitting in the Oval Office. 

AI

I’ve been fearful of artificial intelligence before it was actually a thing invading our day-to-day lives. This is what happens when you grow up watching The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, The Lawnmower Man, The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, The Matrix, Virtuosity, and playing the countless video games in the ’90s about technology gone rogue. 

Humanity is a particularly self-destructive species, and I can’t, for the life of me, understand why we would want to build an artificial intelligence that surpasses our own. While yes, I do have a genuine fear that AI could evolve into a genuine threat to humanity, I’m also concerned with how it’s already changing people’s psychology. There’s already a loneliness problem that is impacting both men and women, and it’s concerning that more and more people are turning to AI chatbots for emotional fulfillment. 

I’m genuinely concerned about the rise of AI because, be it labor, relationships, or even environmental impact, it’s wild to me that folks are happily adopting a technology that already seems to be doing more harm than good.

The Passage Of Time 

So the period between June 2022 and December 2023 is easily the worst year and a half of my life. There was a brief moment where I got everything I wanted, and it all blew up in my face. I went through a bad breakup, the aforementioned layoff, my grandfather died, my relationship with my father deteriorated, and then my aunt died only a few months later. As a result of so much trauma happening in such a compressed amount of time, I really don’t remember much about 2024. 

Processing everything has resulted in a persistent anxiety about the passage of time itself. I only have so much time, the people I care about are getting older, and that fact stresses me out every day. I feel like I’m so far behind where I’m supposed to be, and I always worry that I’m never going to catch up. 

Avengers: Doomsday Is Going To Suck

Listen, I just poured my heart out to you people. I reserve the right to get a little silly. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the closest thing millennials have to our own Star Wars. By that I mean a completely out-of-the-blue, cinematic experience that birthed a generation of fanboys. The MCU started when I was 16, and I came of age with those movies. I associate my college years with the first Avengers movies, my first true love with Black Panther, and Avengers: Endgame is genuinely one of my favorite theater-going experiences ever. 

But y’all, the build to Doomsday has not been it. Doctor Doom is my favorite fictional character, and high-key why I’ve moved with such reckless confidence for most of my adult life. Secret Wars, which is supposed to be the Endgame to Doomsday’s Infinity War, is based on one of my all-time favorite comics. 

I just really don’t have it in me to see Doctor Doom, the man who uttered the phrase “I was a god. I found it… beneath me,” get done dirty because Marvel lost the sauce. 

As you see, there’s plenty to be anxious about, but I do try to mitigate those anxieties with a mixture of exercise, meditation, and prayer, because a negro needs some Jesus to navigate this insane country. And hey, even if Avengers: Doomsday sucks, at least DC seems to be getting it together. 

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