My generation's biggest problem

Gen Z is paying the price of abundance

One morning, as I was once again stuck in an anxiety loop and questioning everything in my existence, I decided to do a quick guided meditation.

While zooming out from this mental block - “What should I write in my newsletter this week???” - I realized that my biggest challenge wasn’t finding inspiration.

It was, on the contrary, choosing among all the possibilities.

This is a recurring pattern: I’m privileged enough to have an infinite amount of choice, throughout most areas in my life.

• Where should I live? I can book a flight for tomorrow and move almost anywhere.

• What should I eat? I have access to all sorts of cuisines with a few clicks on my phone.

• What should I do? Do I really want to work in education? Why not be a dancer instead? Or live on a farm and shut down my social media?

• Who should I date? I matched with 50+ people in my area today.

• What should I wear? Am I a maximalist or a minimalist? Maybe I’ll go with cotton only and natural tints. But I also love this futuristic fairy look!

• What should I consume? I’m never done with scrolling.

And many people of my generation, at least in Western countries, are in the same position.

Maximalist vs Minimalist fashion trend

Different generational problems, same magnitude of challenge

Transition into adulthood is difficult by design.

But Gen Z is facing a new problem. Mondialization brought an abundance of choice. The more choices, the harder the decision. The harder the decision, the bigger the overwhelm. And feeling overwhelmed sets you on the highway to dissatisfaction & procrastination land.

Our ancestors might have complained about a lack of options, and for sure, they wouldn’t have gotten lost in the immensity of them. They were constrained by all sorts of limitations:

• Strong traditions, that would for example encourage them to pursue a similar path as their parents or of their social class.

• Localization.

• Religion and its moral rules.

• Scarcity of quantity and variety of products available.

We, Gen Z, however, are floating in the ether, our gaze constantly gripped by ads, trends and inspirational stories.

For those stuck at school, there’s an even stronger mismatch: spending 8 hours/day in class feeling overly bored vs. the rest of your time being constantly overstimulated by your phone, TV & laptop.

This does give us a broader range of experiences, choices and opportunities, but that’s not all. Gen Z is at the beginning of a cultural revolution.

The birth of multifaceted identities

A culture is made of many elements, such as its language, values, clothing styles, rituals, art, music. Gen Z, with its limitless abundance mindset, is seizing the elements of any culture that seem appealing, like they were at an infinite buffet. This creates multi-faceted, rich-looking identities.

But while our identity is more complex, it also became more superficial.

Instead of having a balanced cultural input, most of us only take on the easiest, commitment-less aspects of those cultures: clothes and music. This has 2 consequences:

1. The death of strong subcultures leading to the loss of a sense of community and belonging,

2. The lack of limits, as the elements chosen from cultures are always expanding the identity, not containing it.

Now that you can be whoever you want, and change it from one trend to the other, even in a matter of weeks, the actual power of a culture - its sense of meaning - is brushed away.

The culture is homogenized, creating stronger extremes (Andrew Tate) or infinite nuance, but always lacking in essence.

We need a container for ourselves, but abundance is by design limitless. Unless… Unless we decide it isn’t.

The metaphor of creative constraints

In art, we often talk about the power of constraints in making creativity flourish. They are powerful because they reduce the number of decisions you need to make.

What if this was a hint at the remedy to our generation’s biggest challenge?

After the age of abundance, comes the age of intentional limitations.

Here’s what human-made limitation systems have looked like, historically speaking:

• They are shared within a group of people

• They give rhythm to life

• There’s a story rich in symbolism to justify them

• They are concrete and simple, which lets them ground us

Those elements are still what we want our limits to look like. Thanks to them, a constraint becomes a container for our life’s journey, like skin contains the body.

Artist unknown

Because I love meta-thinking but also prefer to be able to apply its lessons to my life, here are some final thoughts about how to weave a container for our identity:

i. The power of the tribe
The amount of stimulation available also makes us the loneliest generation ever. Let’s make it a priority to create spaces, for ourselves and others, to meet new people and develop long-lasting relationships.

ii. Creating new myths & symbols
Good stories have more teaching power than years spent into the education system. They provide a profound sense of meaning to our lives.

We need new cosmological visions. Imagination is the skill. Art is the medium. You know what you have to do.

iii. Recalling the importance of life’s rhythms
We created a humanless lifestyle that’s making us sick. Our body is largely the same as a few thousands years ago, which means we are still largely influenced by nature’s rhythms.

Getting to know your body & respecting its needs is wisdom 101. Doing so serves as a limitation in itself.

iv. Developing a new skill set
In today’s society, intentionality, agency, fast decision-making and focus are the keys to navigating the world. They are all linked to one practice: mindfulness. 

The tools to strengthen them are many. If you don’t know which one to choose :wink wink: start with journaling.

v. Loving the ritual
Childhood is made of continuous ceremonial acts. Everything is made special and provokes awe. Rituals are the practice of caring. You can do it too, by bringing back the love and curiosity to little everyday acts.

To each generation, its set of problems. With the higher complexity Gen Z experiences in relation to its identity also come more tools and self-awareness to solve it.

Gen Z gives you the permission to be both a hacker and a princess - Zelda Poem in ~2004

I love my generation and I’m confident that with the right designs, we’ll create lots of new opportunities from this challenge.

Thank you for reading and looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

Zelda

If you want to hear from me next week, you should subscribe:

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I’m Zelda, I live in Mexico and I am deeply in love with life.

This is the first article of my rebranded newsletter, Tomorrow’s ancestors, where I explore the future of education, how to navigate the Gen Z existence, and practical wisdom from past & present.

Yesterday was my birthday and I am so grateful for 1 more year being alive!

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Recent inspiration:

• UNAI is building the next generation of hardware designed to set intentional limitations in how we consume. Podcast of CEO Maxim Perumal here.

• Reggie & Eugene design principles for Mars that help us reimagine Earth.

• Joseph Campbell works, you can start with The Power of Myth serie.

• Man and His Symbols by Jung.

• Isabel’s Twitter golden nuggets of writings.

• Mina Le’s Youtube channel on fashion, starting with explaining the gen z maximalism trend.