The Gray Area with Sean Illing - The millennial midlife crisis

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Welcome to the gray area. I'm Jonqulyn Hill sitting in for Sean Illing. Emil Niazi is a columnist at the cut. She spends a lot of time writing about work and motherhood, and not too long ago, she wrote a piece examining how the midlife crisis is different for millennials. Aging seems to change with each generation.

So I invited her on to talk about the changing markers of adulthood, the eternal optimism of the millennial generation, and why, the end of the day, it might just be late stage capitalism's fault. I had a really great time having this conversation, and I hope you enjoy listening to it. Emil Niazi, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

You're a columnist at the Cut, where you write about motherhood and how that intersects with work. And a few months ago, you wrote this really interesting column called midlife crisis in the end times. Mhmm. And you've actually written quite a bit about this particular stage in life. Why is midlife in our current moment something you're drawn to explore?

Well, 1st of all, I just am 40 now. So naturally, you know, I'm I'm in this phase of life, and I'm thinking about it. And and this is kind of what what I write about is my experience of life. But, also, I I I look at, my parents. I look at the generation, even just 1 above me, you know, Gen Xers.

I'm an elder millennial, and and it appears to be a very different experience of midlife that that we're having, and certainly that I think Gen Z, is going to have. And so I just really think it's important that people understand that not only are we in a midlife crisis, but we are in just like an economic crisis, a cultural crisis, a crisis of fertility. There's so much going on that is altering our experience of this stage of life. And it feels like a particularly precarious stage of life because of all of those things. And so I just I'm sort of like the canary in the coal mine sounding the bell going, like, help help.

I think that this this is very different than it used to be.

We're gonna dig into the midlife crisis even more. But 1st, I wanna go back to another crisis, and that's the 0.25 life crisis. To tell you a little bit about myself, a decade ago, I was 25. And what I remember about being 25 is crying all the time about not being where I felt like I was supposed to be in life, that I wasn't making the progress that I was supposed to. Did you go through something similar around that age?

100%. Absolutely. I felt, you know, you're coming out of school. You have this expectation of where you should be. Right?

You're you're coming out of school. You're thinking, okay. I've got the skills now. I have the knowledge. I'm ready for my 1st adult job.

I'm ready to take on more responsibility to have, you know, my 1st foray into adulthood. And for so many of us, for me anyways, I struggled to find work in my field. I studied journalism. I struggled to be able to pay my rent by myself. I was struggling romantically.

You know, I just was I was hurting. And it felt like I just wasn't where where I wanted to be or where I thought I was supposed to be. And I think that that's that you know, as the kind of 1st real marker of adulthood around that age, I think, yeah, a lot of us probably go through crisis. I certainly did. I certainly did.

I think about a lot of the conversations I see online about aging. And I think I see people getting progressively younger and younger about the freak out. Like, it'll be, oh, if you're not doing this by 30, you're cooked. If you're not doing this by 25, you're cooked. If you're not doing this by 21, it's so over for you.

We're living so much longer, but I don't know. It feels like the spiral is starting to happen even younger and younger these days.

Yeah. I I was just listening to a a morning television show talking about markers of adulthood and how they have shifted, for every generation. And, you know, for for me, it was, like, getting my 1st real job, getting my 1st apartment, moving out, of my parents' home, you know, getting a car, just starting to to build those kind of, like, foundational, aspects of what we would consider adulthood. And there was a natural kind of progression to start to feel like, you know, you were you were moving towards independence. What I see, lots of people, younger than me are often not moving out at all, or they're moving out into their thirties.

And so when when do you start to become an adult? When do you start to feel like an adult if it's not moving out of your parents' home? If it's not, finding, that kind of employment that allows you to build financial freedom. You know? If you're if you have precarious work, if you're freelancing, if you're consistently doing gig work, it's really difficult to to get that solid financial footing to be able to then consider yourself an adult.

And so I I think that the collapse of those markers is causing a lot a lot of us to panic earlier and earlier about what we can accomplish. I think, of course, like, you're never cooked. It's never too late. I you know, 1 of my favorite, experiences I've had on social media was I sort of jokingly said, like, is it too late for me to go to medical school at 40? And the replies were there were, like, hundreds of replies from people who were like, I went back to law school at 45, or I went to medical school at 50, or, you know, just like, it is never too late to be the person that you wanna be.

However, because we are living through really difficult economic times, really, you know, it just is harder to feel like you can do those things. Like, you can turn the page. And I think it makes it more and more difficult to feel like anything is possible because often you get stuck in the mindset of like, nothing is possible.

What do you think the difference is between that 0.25 life crisis and that midlife crisis? Does it feel the same? Are they different? Are they different because of, I don't know, who you are? Are they different because of the state of the world?

I'm I'm curious how they compare. For me

and I this is not a judgment on, what it feels like because it feels no matter what stage you're at, like, is a crisis. But the midlife crisis for me, the stakes feel a lot higher because I have children. I have a mortgage. I am responsible for, many many more people than just myself. And if I mess up, I have a lot a lot more to lose.

Whereas when I was 25, if it didn't work out for me, if I did get laid off, I could always move back home. Or I, you know, I could get a roommate. You can stretch your dollar in a very different way when you're just responsible for yourself and you're sort of used to living, within sort of constricted means. Now I can't just feed my kids ramen for months on end. You know?

I I if I lose my home, then I it's, I can't bring my family of 5 into my mom's apartment. It's just it's very different. And so the emotions are often very similar. For me, the stakes, are are different, and there's, for me, more to lose, in the midlife crisis. But there are a of emotional parallels for sure.

1 of the interesting things I find in this column is that you talk to quite a few people who are ranging from their mid thirties to their early forties, including, Joy, who is having a very different experience than her own mother had at the same age. Can you tell us a little bit about her?

For so many of the people I spoke to, they had grown up in a comfortable way. You know, they were able to have extracurricular experiences. They their parents seemingly, were able to pay the bills, buy a house, you know, afford to put money away for retirement. And Joy was, like, looking at her parents' home and thinking, I there's no way I could ever afford the lifestyle that my parents afforded me. And I just think there's something really heartbreaking about feeling like whereas every generation before us did better than their parents and built upon, the foundation that their parents had created, that now we're regressing and we're doing worse and that, you know, we're struggling in a very different way.

And so Joy, in speaking to me, you know, she was just so emotional about the fact that, yeah, she's just not able to to have the same it's not just about lifestyle. I think it's about the idea that you're locked out of an experience that, so many generations before you, took for granted.

Are there any other threads that the folks who you talk to share that their stories kind of have the same patterns?

A lot of fear. A lot of fear about the future in a way that was, like, very tangible, and visceral. I think another thing about the 0.25 life crisis that I think is different than the midlife crisis is, like, you know, when you're 25, there are so many paths open to you, and there's so much, possibility. And it's not that there isn't possibility when you're, you know, 35 or 40 or 45, but the reality is there there are fewer paths. There is a lot of, judgment and limitation in hiring.

I I was listening to a radio show from out of The UK recently, and this woman, 50 year old woman who had, worked for a very long time in fashion and art and and consulting, and she'd always had more work than she could take on, done really well. High flyer, high earner. She's now broke, and she's unemployed. And she cannot get hired because she's a 50 year old woman. And her friend finally said, take all the years off of your resume.

The year that you went to school, the year that you were like, just take all of the dates out of your resume because you're not getting hired because of how old you are. Your resume is reading as too old. And so in talking to the people for this piece that I wrote, there was that fear that if they are laid off or if they lose 1 of their contracts or enough of their contracts, they're not gonna be able to replace that work with anything. And whereas when you're 25, I think you you sort of go, okay. I I you know, I lost that client, but give me a little bit of time, and I'll make that up because, you know, you're out there.

You're talking to people. People see you in a very different way when you're 25 and hustling than when you're, I think, 45 and hustling. So that was a that was a really consistent thread. And then also that fear of, like, okay. Yeah.

I can cover my bills for now. I can feed my family for now. But what does the future look like? Like, what how many able-bodied working years do I have left? And what happens, like, when I can't work anymore?

A lot of their retirement plans were, like, work till I die or you know what I mean? Like, drop dead on the job. And that's sad. Like, I laugh, but and we laughed about it because you kind of have to have a sense of humor about these things or you'll, you know, fall into a pool of existential despair. But truly, retirement is really, really scary to, to a lot of the people I spoke to.

And

Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting how this economic piece keeps coming up. Because on 1 hand, I think with aging, I don't know. It's freaky. It freaks me out to think about.

Sometimes I sit and I'm like, oh my gosh, mortality. Death comes for us all. Yeah. Yeah. Etcetera etcetera.

It's just it's it's scary to think about. And on the other hand, when I hear about retirement, when I hear about this money piece, when I hear, oh, will I just have to work forever? It's kind of like, oh, is this just late stage capitalism? Like, how much of the midlife crisis that folks are having now is just, you know, the typical, hey, we're getting older. Gotta go buy a Ferrari.

Gotta freak out a little bit versus, oh, the society we're living in is not sustainable.

Yes. Totally. I like, it's definitely a lot of, anguish about late stage capitalism, about the fact that, like, you it's no longer possible for a lot of people to, sustain a living by doing x y z. A lot of the the older folks, a lot of people's parents could work a job, the same job for 30 plus years, have a pension, retire, have this sense of, confidence in what tomorrow looked like and what tomorrow would bring. And there that is lacking for a lot of people.

But you're right. Apart from the economic piece, there is this other feeling of, have I missed out on, like, a really core, human experience where, you know, I get to mature into these different stages of life? A lot there were people who felt they could not afford to have kids, so they didn't. And so they felt a little bit like they'd missed out on that. Or they continue to live at home, and so they feel they're missing out on the experience of living by yourself and building that that sense of emotional independence.

So it's these 2 things in in tandem that I think, make this crisis feel different from, hey, I've had the same job forever, and it's boring, and I've had the same wife forever and it's boring, and so I'm gonna pierce my ear and buy a leather jacket. Like, that that it by no means did anyone I spoke with feel like, they had to shake up a stable life in order to feel young again. It was almost like, they were searching for adulthood

in their crisis. It sounds like there is this clear difference between the millennial midlife crisis and the midlife crisis of yore. What do you think the events are that have defined the millennial generation? Like, what is shaping the outlook that you and the people you spoke to have about life right now?

I I mean, I think there are these, like, domino, events from our, I would say, like, late childhood, early adulthood. You know, obviously, 9 11 happened when most of us were in high school, just at the tail end. And that was a a massive moment that shifted politics, culture, the economy, the way we spoke to each other, the way the entire country looked at things like security and, otherhood. And then you have the 2008 financial crisis just as many of us were finally getting our footing, getting into secure jobs, coming you know, again, a generation coming out of college, and then boom, you know, you're hit with mass layoffs. People who would have otherwise started to build that nest egg are now having to draw on it because they're laid off or they can't get work.

And and it financial scarring is real, and it's had a big impact. And then, you know, there's the the tech boom and bust. There's they're just so there's the entire collapse of the media industry. You know? Like, so many of the industries that we trained in essentially disappeared or pivoted just as we were again, like, coming into our own.

And so it's that domino effect of 1 step forward, 10 steps back that I think has led to where we are right now, which is for many of us still not having a handle on the economics of our lives or delaying a lot of things like marriage, children, homeownership, planning for retirement, paying off student loans, all of those delaying all of those things that would otherwise just be natural, markers of adulthood.

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Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Aging looks so much different now. And I'm curious, you know, how that's impacting the way we approach midlife. Like, I don't know.

I think of aging very differently. There are people in my life I know who are in their eighties and seventies, and it looks nowhere near what I thought it looked like, let alone thirties and forties. I wonder how does that play into this moment?

Yeah. I think that's, like, a really interesting part of it. You know, we we don't look like our parents looked at 40 or 30. And that, I think, is also allowing us to to live a kind of prolonged whatever you wanna call it. It's not adolescence, obviously, but it is this, like, extended kind of early adulthood where we we physically look and feel like we are still quite young.

And I think that impacts the choices that we make. I think it changes, like, our romantic decisions. I think it can change your your career aspirations as well. Although, on the other side of that is, like, pressure to stay looking young because our society is more obsessed with youth than ever.

Yeah. I think there's sort of this, like, kind of meme you see online where it's like and I will say millennials look great. I think I look good. I think you look good. I think we look fantastic.

Yeah. Shout out to sunscreen. But there is kind of that meme of millennials being like, oh my gosh, people think I'm 15. People think I'm in utero. People think I'm a zygote.

Like, I'm so and it's like, oh, why are we so obsessed with being young?

Yes. Yes. I I think that that is, like, kind of the thing that we have to grapple with. Like, you know, maybe we don't have some of the existential panic of our, our elders, our gen x and boomer elders, but we're grappling with a different 1, which is, yeah, the way in which we value youth, what it means for those of us who who want to age and look our age? And are we gonna get cut out of a certain type of society?

Like, is a woman allowed to look 50 years old and still be in the workforce and still work in, say, fashion or culture or media, industries famously that value youth and and and, a certain physical appearance. You know, in the same way that Ozempic and and peptides, like, god knows. I haven't injected myself with a peptide yet, but, like, I guess I'm supposed to.

I mean, I think it's coming for us all, it seems like. I don't know.

Like, there there is this, I think, growing fear that if we decide not to buy into that, then where's our place, in the conversation? And and what happens on the other side of it? Like, to what end? You know what I mean? As you said very early on, death comes for us all.

And so are we putting all of our emphasis and all of our energy into looking young while ignoring, like, the reality of mortality and what it means and, what delaying those markers of adulthood is gonna look like when we are 60 and 70 and 80. You know, if you not that I don't think, you know, you should have children to look after you in your in your old age, but what is our society going to look like when more and more of us don't have children? Are are we going how are we gonna take care of each other? I just think that those questions are are sort of being put off. And meanwhile, we're, like, just really focusing on, you know, what what peptides to inject in order to stay looking youthful.

I'm I'm glad you brought up this idea of caretaking. Because for a

lot of millennials, people are caretaking on 2 ends. You're caring for aging parents. You're caring for growing children. How is that shaping our midlives?

Yeah. I think it's like, I mean, my my father, he's in his early seventies. He lives in, on the West Coast. I live, in Toronto, on the East Coast of the country. And he recently had a heart attack, and I it, like, really reshaped my understanding of where I fall in the spectrum of of life.

It was like, I am not the kid anymore. I'm the adult. And my dad is my parents are are increasingly people who need caretaking. But I also have my youngest child is 2.5, and he is very much also someone that needs active caretaking. And being stuck in the middle, is really tricky, and it's really difficult, and it is, you know, financially taxing.

It's emotionally taxing. It's physically taxing. And I think that that is something that is really different too. Because when my parents were in their early to mid forties, I was just finishing high school. Like, they were done that part of it, you know?

And they were, yes, grappling with their, elderly parents, but it was in a really different way. And and my grandma lived with us. There was this multigenerational living that was possible because the house was bigger. And now we live in smaller places. We're not necessarily able to have that type of multigenerational living that allows us to do some of that caretaking in tandem.

Our our, you know, our spaces are not as big. We don't have as much money to be able to do that. So I think it really has has changed the way in which we navigate those 2 different things. And and let me tell you, I don't I don't know that anyone prepared, millennial moms to, like, go through perimenopause while having toddlers, you know? And and a lot of us, women are having, babies later and later into life.

Anne Hathaway, pregnant in her forties, Natalie Portman, pregnant in her, I think she's, like, 47. You know, those women are gonna be dealing with a very different postpartum reality than their parents dealt with.

Yeah. I don't think I thought of that. That is true.

Yeah. I mean, like, the hormones that that you're dealing with are so already heightened as a as a postpartum mom or as a pregnant, person, tack on the fact that you are, like, entering at that age, at 47, like, for a lot of women, menopause. And so it just is really, I I don't think that we know enough about how that that part of it, the hormonal part of it, the, physical part of it is is also shaping how we parent, how we caretake. You asked me at the beginning, like, why do I, wanna write about this stuff? And it's because these are things that a lot of, people just have not tackled.

And so I think it's important that we name it and we talk about it so that we can help each other and we can figure out a way forward that's, like, not just destroying us.

You know, I I think we live in a time where revisionist history is really popular. Like, there's this yearning for an existence that never really existed. I think a lot

of our

yeah. I think a lot of our politics is shaped by that. You know, people look back on the fifties and idealize it. People look back on the nineties and idealize it. Are we looking back on the 40 year olds of the past with rose colored glasses?

To some degree, for sure. Because when I think about the amount of responsibility my parents had from a very, very young age. Like, talk about, you know, 0.25 life crisis. My mom was 22 when she had me. And then by the time she was, like, 25, 26, she had 3 kids under 5.

Wow. So, you know, a very different I don't even think she had time for 0.25 life crisis because she just was, like, in in the thick of it. And there are a lot of things that she wasn't able to do for herself because she spent the that big chunk of her, early adulthood actively steeped in caretaking. And I think that it makes a lot of sense to me that by the time someone like that would reach 40, they would want to re experience their youth as opposed to someone like me turning 40 and going, god, I just want, like, more responsibility, more stability, more adulthood, you know? So there there the grass is certainly always greener.

And I I don't think that, a 40 year old in the nineties had it any, better than we do in many ways. This is, as good as it's ever been. But I do understand why we idealize that version of it because I think so many of us are feeling so vulnerable, financially in terms of, like, yeah, not not not having those, like if you want things like marriage and kids, like, if you if that feels out of reach for you, I understand why you would feel resentful or upset or jealous, you know? So I understand where where the idealization comes from, But for sure, there I don't think, like, you know, would you would you rather be a 40 year old who's got, you know, kids, in college and you have to figure out how to pay for that? Meanwhile, you know, you still have the same responsibilities, but you just didn't get to maybe travel, every summer for your entire twenties and thirties.

Or, you know, you didn't I also think there's this, like, I had a lot of living and a lot of joy and a lot of irresponsibility and a lot of years of only having to care for myself and only having to manage myself. So at this stage of my life, I truly have almost 0 FOMO. Like, you tell me Oh, you're

that's You tell me you're

out on a Thursday night or whatever. You tell me you're, you know, partying or doing what I'm like, good for you. I'm glad you have the energy. I don't feel I've missed because I've done I've lived a lot. There's been a lot of, like, effing around.

There's been a lot of, like, enjoyment in my life. And so I don't I don't feel like I missed out. Whereas, I know a lot, you know, my parents, I know a lot of old people who are older who who did feel like they sort of missed out on, a you a certain kind of youth because they had so many responsibilities at such an early age that I just There didn't

there's so much that you just said that I just wanna like, oh, let's dig into this. I think the 1st part I think it is so interesting. And maybe this is the difference. Like, in the past, midlife was, oh, I miss my youth. Let me seek it again.

And now midlife is, I've had this extended youth. Please make me a real adult. What do I have to do to access real adulthood?

Exactly. Exactly. I really think that's a big part of it. It's like, we're coming at it from these 2 different, vantage points. 1 is I wish I would have had more time to be selfish, to be alone.

And, you know, it's not that you you hear from a lot of, like, older women who say, I wish I'd waited longer to have kids or I wish I'd only had 1 kid or and it's not that they regret parenthood or motherhood, but I think that there is this feeling of I just wanted more time to myself. And then then from the other side is this idea of, like, I had so much time to myself, and all I wanted was the opportunity to be, independent in a way that I just wasn't able to be because I had to live at home for longer because I had, you know, I had to put off all of these things. I would have had kids sooner, but I couldn't couldn't afford it. So it's like these very 2 interesting sides of the same coin. And I think, you know, the the sad truth is ultimately, like, you have 1 life.

You have all of these, seemingly, limitless options. You can only choose so many. And so we're always gonna have this feeling of what if, you know, sliding doors. That's like a perpetual, feeling. And that I think that's a big part of adulthood too is, like, there are things that you just will not get to do because you're doing something else.

And, I I think that that that is really interesting too.

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There's this book that I read when I was in my early thirties, and it's called But You're Still So Young. It's by Kayleen Schafer. And it gets at how people don't hit those traditional markers of adulthood that we've been talking about. They're finishing school, leaving home, financial independence, getting married, having kids. Often, it happening in that exact order.

You're married. You have children. And I gotta admit, like, I'm living the single life. I'm like, oh, that must be so like, oh, you're oh, it must is it about hitting all of those markers? Or is it about hitting some of them?

Like, are we never gonna be satisfied until we've checked every single box of that adulthood checklist?

I mean, it's interesting. You know, I really feel, for me, I I almost came into my own when I became a mother. And and I think part of that was that it it, like, unlocked a new kind of selfishness in me, which was that I was like, I I only have so much time on earth. Like, it really made me hyper aware of, my my mortality and and the limits of my time. And so I was like, I only wanna spend this 1 life I have doing exactly what brings me joy and purpose and happiness.

And so beyond that marker, I could have no none of none of the other things. You know, I don't homeownership, whatever, like, it doesn't it didn't matter to me beyond that, because it fulfilled something for me that, was really necessary. But I think you can have that same feeling, that same realization with with none of those markers. I think it's almost about self actualization, you know, like, not to get into, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

No. Let's get into the hierarchy of needs. We can do that. We do that on the gray area.

But I do think it's, like, what gets you there? You know what I mean? Is it that job that that you've all you know, like, that you've spent your life studying for and working towards, is it partnership? Is it children? Is it home ownership?

Whatever it is, whatever marker helps you feel like you're doing the thing that you want to do is enough, but it's just that for a lot of us having none of those markers or feeling like we, are locked out of of all of them, that's where we get caught in this cycle, I think, of crisis. And if you feel you can't afford to have kids, you can't afford to have partnership, or you can't meet anyone because you are, you know, isolated, you're working from home, all of these different things. Home ownership increasingly. You know, that's I think that is a a big thing for a lot of people. They they take a lot of pride, in in having a place that is their own.

If you can't have that, it it can be very frustrating. And I think you you can start to feel very resentful. And I think that's where you get this feeling of, like, well, other generations had it so easy. Other generations were able to buy a house on, like, you know, the salary of whatever. Whatever job you you you think is like

Oh, yeah. I mean, my grandfather had a good union job, was able to put his kids through school, could even, you know, throw my mom, aunt, and uncle a little extra money here and there. Like, school loans, what are those? It was just it was a different time.

Different time. Yes. I know. I remember explaining this to, I mean, I don't even know if they were boomers. I think they were, like, slightly older than that.

But they were talking about, like, you know, why are young people complaining so much, like, in my day, blah blah blah. And I was like, do you even understand, like, how much, greater the the, like, cost of a home is than this average salary that people make now, add in student loans, like crippling, amounts of debt into that. Add in then, like, the amount of industries that have shrank or pivoted or disappeared altogether. You're you're just talking about 2 different universes. Like and that was very eye opening for them because I think a lot of people, a lot of older people still another reason that I write about this kind of stuff is they still don't understand completely just how different the picture is.

And it's not just a financial picture. It's not just this, like, kind of, like, sociological picture, of of loneliness and and, you know, the way tech has shaped all of that for us. It is all of these things converging at once to suddenly make for this drastically different life experience for a lot of us. I wanna look forward

a little bit. You know, you write a lot about motherhood. And in this column, you talk about your children and how you're shielding them from the chaos that we're facing in the world we live in right now. What do you hope the world will be like when it's time for their midlife crisis?

Yeah. That's a well, 1st of all, I hope that that there is a world still when that happens. Well, so part of me has to kind of, like, have this type of blind optimism that things won't be that different, that they will still be able to, experience these these types of things that are, consistent for every generation. I truly hope that the world is the same. Like, all all I hope is that what I imagine is coming for them is not the case.

Like, the world is getting hotter and hotter. That's just a reality that every every summer where I live, there are, many, many, many wildfires. Increasingly, there are days where the smoke is so bad that for most of the country, you can't go outside. You know? And that's unbearable to think that you can't send your children outside to play because the air is unbreathable.

Mhmm. And then you think about the reality of of AI take like, taking jobs. Like, when my husband and I joke about, like, oh, you know, our son is so good at this. I hope 1 day he'll be this. And then I always counter it with, like, if that's still a thing.

Like, you know, I'm like, yeah, he would be such a great, comedian if that's still a thing. Like, I really don't my best case scenario is that things are exactly the same. That would be that would be my dream. What I fear is coming is, like, that every single aspect of life will only get worse, and that that that's something that really breaks my heart. But I have to like, having children is an act of optimism.

It is a belief that the world can be better and will be better. And so I have to hope that, you know, for them, 1 day, they'll be so bored with their stable lives that they will go out and, you know, not just buy themselves a Ferrari, but buy me 1 too because Yeah. Why not? Yeah.

You know, I I'm I'm glad you talked about the optimism of having children. Because I think whether you decide to have kids or not, millennials are a generation that's often been defined by optimism. I think of, you know, the election where many of us 1st got engaged in politics was all about hope and change. Or, you know, even in the wake of recession, and we could see how it played out. But at the time, it was like, hey, we're gonna move fast.

We're gonna break things. We're gonna make companies. We're gonna make it happen. We are gonna rise from these ashes. Mhmm.

How optimistic are you that we will turn these things around?

I'm really glad that you brought up this idea of optimism and hope, because I think that that is what's getting me up every single day and continuing to work and mother and love my friends and just, like, take care of my community is because I truly do believe that what defines our generation is not misery. It's not, you know, economic precarity. It's not, you know, avocado toast. It is the ability to not just believe that the world is gonna be better, but to actively try and make it better. And I think we have done so much in regards, to that.

And, yeah, some things didn't pan out how we had hoped and planned, But look how far we have come on so many issues, that, you know, certainly, people are trying to claw back a lot of that change, but, you know, the darkness can only do so much. And I think we, like, we really have, reshaped the world, for the better, and I truly believe that we will continue to do so. And I think, the generations after us give me so much hope as well. It's you know, I see the I see gen z's attitude towards work and boundaries. And, like, I love when, you know, that meme popped up of, like, I don't dream of labor.

And it's like, hell yeah, baby. I don't What

is your dream job? I don't.

I don't dream of labor either. And it took me decades to be able to say that out loud because I was always told, like, ambition is, like, a moral necessity. You know? It's a virtue and it's, you know, you gotta stand on that. And, to be able to say that out loud, you know, 10 toes down, as they say, it's like, I love that.

And so that those types of things really, bring me a lot of hope because that means that, you know, the workforce will be changed by people who say, if this is not serving me and my needs and my family's needs, then I will not serve it.

What do you hope is on the other side of that midlife crisis?

Peace. And I think, like, I'm getting there. I really feel, like, I'm inching towards this feeling, like, no matter what comes, no matter how many gray hairs I find, no matter, how different my body looks than it used to, no matter the creak of my bones every morning when I get out of bed. I'm comfortable in my body. I'm comfortable in who I am.

I'm secure in the life that I've lived and that I'm living. And I I know I think for me, like, this life is a journey to finding, peace. And I think that that's what's on the other side of this crisis for sure. For me, anyways.

Emil Niazi, thank you so much for joining us. If people wanna find your work, where can they find it?

Well, 1st, you can buy my book. It's called Life A Good Enough Memoir. You can get that wherever you buy your books, hopefully from, like, a local independent bookstore. And then you can find me on Instagram, at Emile Niazi.

Alright. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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