When I read articles like this, it just makes me feel like things are hopeless.

[GQ Chris]

Gen X was right: Reality really does bite

 

[GQ Chris]

...makes me feel like things are hopeless, yet since I know that Christ is real, I can't give into those feelings.

 

[JM]

Spiritual depression is a real thing. Baxter wrote about it, so did Lloyd-Jones, I’ve benefited greatly from Baxter’s work.

 

[abacabb3]

I'm a millenial I suppose (born in 85), but I am an "old soul." So, I was working a full time job and bought a condo before the "great recession:" In fact, it hit just when I did both.

So, I lost more than half of my home's value, which is $70K. I owned a business for four years that never was able to make money for me until the end, in which marital and family reasons led me to dissolving it. I had college debt from my masters degree, but I lived very frugally and worked 7 days a week and paid it off within a year.

My wife had a full scholarship, and so when we were married she had no debt, and we paid off the house within a year, and bought a house for her family in her country another year later. After doing all of this, it was time to start saving for retirement, but at that point I was 29 years old.

So, God has been good to us, but we're not on pace to be upper middle class, which in my mind would constitute owning a home that can fit more than one child. And, I know, the only way we can afford more than one child is if we both work, something I would prefer not to be the case when we have children by God's grace.

Soon, I'll be starting a job with the government, so hopefully I will work 30 years and have a pension, so that in addition to retirement savings will pay our bills. We won't be rich. I feel screwed like a Gen Xer per se. Lost a ton on my home, got caught up in a career from a bad economy that I did not want (automotive repair) that did not pay enough for all the time I put into work and my education, and got a late start saving for retirement.

However, I have to give thanks to Christ that I have been provided throughout all of this and I have more than I need by a longshot. God has enabled my wife and I to be a blessing to others, and ultimately our security comes from Him and not our decisions.

I will therefore seek to honor God in my work, my savings, my spending, and decisions. I leave to God the consequences and ask for His grace in being better in how I conduct myself in the meantime.

 

[BryanW92]

That is a depressing article GQ Chris, but it's all true. I'm kind of a Boomer-X, having been born in 1962 to parents who are the oldest of the Boomers (born in 45). The article doesn't really mention the fact that Millenials are resigned to their fate that hard work will not really get them anything but more hard work, but the Gen Xers have that work ethic almost written into our DNA. So when the system screws us time and time again, we are always surprised, while the Millenial just shrugs and moves on. They are much better prepared for the neo-feudalist world that is coming.

 

[JM]

Interesting.

 

[gord44]