I first heard the proverb from my mom. It’s become my unofficial motto, for better or worse. I feel like it’s become the unofficial motto for many in my generation— for better or worse.
Better laugh than cry.
Every generation has its problems, but being a 20-something year old kind of sucks right now. How are we dealing? By joking.
100k in student debt? Better laugh than cry.
Can’t move out or live alone because an apartment is $1800 a month? Better laugh than cry.
Entry level jobs are asking for 4 years of experience? Better laugh than cry.
Earth may never be the same again because no one wants to actually tackle climate change? Better laugh than cry.
Dating has been reduced to swiping, random hookups and ghosting? Better laugh than cry.
Our president is running the US into the ground? Better laugh than cry.
(Hamberders, thousands of them. Better laugh than cry.)
If someone overheard the conversations I have with my friends, they might be concerned by how often we mention wanting to die.
“I’m so EGGcited for breakfast! Get it?”
“Literally kill yourself”
“I wish…”
Obviously, we don’t actually want to die. We want to live. We want to develop meaningful careers. We want families. We want financial stability. We want purpose. We want what young adults have always wanted.
But the fact that we’re going so far as to using death (arguably the most common fear) as a joke speaks to how expert this generation has become at hiding fear. Hiding the fear that comes with not knowing what the hell we’re doing, or where this country is going. Hiding fear behind a veil of cynicism, and excessive sarcasm.
I’m writing from the pool of the relatively privileged (I can’t speak from any other perspective). We’re educated, we have family to live with, we can try different jobs, we have smartphones on which to download dating apps. But a winning hand is useless if you don’t know the rules of the game, and right now the instruction manual appears to be in Chinese.
So we laugh while we pop our pills for anxiety and depression. We laugh while we self-medicate with booze/ other substances. We laugh as we max out our credit cards.
We laugh until we’re crying.
Almost Linear 