Young People Aren’t Lazy — The Old World No Longer Keeps Its Promises

Have you noticed that many young people today are not unwilling to move forward — they are simply becoming less and less convinced that “moving forward” still means what it used to mean.

They know they are supposed to study, work, save money, improve themselves, and become the kind of people society approves of. What truly exhausts them is something deeper: the quiet realization that they are playing a game whose rules have already changed, while the judging system remains stuck in the past.

For the previous generation, the script was relatively clear: study hard, find a stable job, save gradually, buy a home, get married, and life would slowly get better. That logic once made sense. The economy was growing, cities were expanding, degrees were still relatively scarce, and asset prices had not yet fully detached from ordinary wages. Hard work did not guarantee success for everyone, but there was at least a fairly stable connection between effort and upward mobility.

But today, many young people are facing a very different reality.

Degrees are becoming more common. Housing prices in major cities remain painfully high. Ordinary wage growth struggles to keep up with asset prices. Entry-level white-collar jobs are being reshaped by platforms, outsourcing, and AI. At the same time, people’s attention is constantly being fragmented by short videos, social media, and algorithmic feeds.

Yet society still expects young people to perform success according to the old script: be disciplined, be stable, buy a home, get married, stay emotionally balanced, and keep improving yourself.

The problem is that the rewards once promised by that script are no longer being reliably delivered.

This is the absurdity felt by many young people today.

Absurdity is not melodrama. It is not pessimism. It is what happens when a person once genuinely believed in a set of rules, only to discover that reality no longer operates according to those rules.

You study hard, only to find that a degree no longer automatically changes your life. You work hard, only to find that your salary can barely keep up with housing prices. You try to stay focused, only to find that the entire internet is designed to train you into distraction. You try to plan your future, only to realize that the future itself has become increasingly uncertain.

For Camus, the absurd arises when the human longing for meaning and order collides with a silent, indifferent world. The absurdity of young people today is similar. They are not unwilling to push the rock uphill; they are beginning to wonder whether the rock will ever be allowed to stay at the top.

When an era takes away the certainty of the future while still demanding that people remain enthusiastic about it, that pain cannot simply be dismissed as a lack of resilience.

The first problem today is that attention is being systematically contested.

Many people think they are simply scrolling on their phones. But the deeper issue is that the algorithms behind the screen are training the way we perceive the world.

Short videos, recommendation feeds, likes, comments, and instant feedback have created a new rhythm of life: information becomes shorter, stimulation becomes denser, feedback becomes faster, and emotions are triggered more easily.

In this environment, people are not merely wasting time. They are slowly losing the ability to tolerate slowness: slowly reading a book, slowly learning a skill, slowly building a relationship, slowly waiting for a result.

Marx used the idea of alienation to describe how human beings can become controlled by the forces they themselves create. In the digital age, attention, emotion, and the desire for self-expression can also become alienated by platform mechanisms.

Users think they are freely choosing what to watch, but many of those choices have already been shaped by recommendation systems. Users think they are expressing themselves, but even self-expression is often reshaped by the logic of traffic and engagement.

The truly frightening prophecy in Huxley’s Brave New World was not that humanity would be destroyed by violence, but that it would be tamed by the very things it loved.

The algorithmic society of today works in a similar way. It does not suppress desire; it amplifies desire. It does not take away freedom; it turns freedom into an endless stream of choices. It does not command obedience; it keeps people comfortable, distracted, soothed, and entertained — until they slowly surrender their own sense of agency.

The second problem is that the reward for labor is becoming increasingly uncertain.

In the past, people believed in work because work could gradually be exchanged for a more stable life. Today, what makes many young people feel powerless is this: you can work very hard, but hard work may still not bring you a home, security, or upward mobility.

Especially in major cities, housing is no longer just a place to live. It is tied to identity, marriage, education resources, family security, and even the social judgment of whether a person is “successful.”

When the prices of core assets consistently rise faster than ordinary wages, young people can clearly sense that the money they earn by selling their time may never catch up with the assets already held by other families.

Bourdieu argued that class is not reproduced only through money, but also through cultural capital, social capital, and family resources.

On the surface, young people today may appear to be competing in the same exams, job markets, and social systems. But they enter the competition with very different resources. Some come in with family assets, urban advantages, educational planning, networks, and the ability to take risks. Others enter with only their degree, their time, and their anxiety.

The system may appear open, but differences at the starting point become differences throughout the process, and eventually become differences in outcome.

So the idea of “equal opportunity” has not completely disappeared, but it increasingly needs to be examined with more honesty.

The third problem is that AI is redistributing the value of work.

AI can certainly improve efficiency. It can help ordinary people learn, create, and work. But it will not automatically bring equality.

No powerful technology enters society in isolation. It is always embedded within existing structures of capital, education, and organization. Those who have data, computing power, resources, judgment, and stronger tool-using abilities are more likely to benefit from a new technological cycle.

AI is not necessarily replacing all human abilities first. What it is affecting most quickly are standardized, repetitive, and easily replicable forms of junior knowledge work: basic copywriting, simple analysis, data organization, process execution, entry-level coding, and low-level operations.

These jobs once served as entry points into the workplace for many young people. Now they are being revalued.

The future may increasingly resemble an hourglass. At the top will be a small group of people who control technology, capital, cognition, and organizational power. At the bottom will be a large group of people who rely on physical labor, time, and emotional labor to survive. In the middle, many white-collar jobs that were once considered respectable, stable, and replicable may continue to be squeezed.

The real divide will no longer simply be between those who have tools and those who do not. It will be between those who know how to use the tools and those who do not.

Some people use AI to generate a few paragraphs. Others use it to build workflows, analyze markets, create products, and amplify their own abilities.

The tools may appear to be available to everyone, but the real barriers are the ability to ask good questions, make judgments, integrate information, and execute.

So the future is not simply a future where “everyone loses their job.” It is more likely to be a future of sharper division.

One group will become the architects of the new system. They understand AI, understand industries, understand the flow of resources, and know how to turn tools into leverage.

Another group will become the executors continuously optimized and replaced by the system. Their work will be standardized, low-bargaining-power, and highly replicable.

A third group may return to the physical world and regain value through embodied experience, on-site judgment, complex human interaction, and practical skills.

Therefore, the real question for young people is not “Should we still work hard in this era?” but “What should we work hard for?”

If people continue to discipline themselves with the old coordinates — study hard, enter a big company, buy property, get married, watch assets appreciate — many will only fall into deeper frustration.

The problem is not that they lack ability. The problem is that the era they live in no longer reliably rewards that route.

Weber’s idea of the “iron cage” of rationalization is especially visible today.

Young people are constantly required to optimize themselves: optimize their resumes, skills, image, social networks, emotions, and time management. Life becomes a project that must be continuously managed. The individual becomes almost like a company of one.

But when external structures become more unstable, this self-management does not necessarily bring security. It may instead create deeper anxiety.

Failure is no longer understood as a structural issue. It is often interpreted as poor personal management. Society shifts risk onto the individual while still expecting the individual to carry the shame of failure alone.

The first step in responding to this era is not to lie flat, but to break the spell.

Break the blind faith in “big companies,” “respectable white-collar jobs,” “owning property,” and the standard life timeline.

These things are not meaningless, but they can no longer be the only standards.

One has to ask: Is this path truly right for me, or is it simply something society taught me to envy?

Am I pursuing security, or am I pursuing the appearance of success? Is my current effort actually increasing my abilities, or am I merely maintaining a respectable illusion?

This kind of clarity matters.

It is not a rejection of effort. It is a rejection of misdirected effort.

It is not a rejection of success. It is a rejection of being humiliated by a single definition of success.

Young people need to step away from the old script and stop equating the system’s definition of failure with personal failure.

The second step is to reclaim attention.

The scarcest resource in this era is not information. It is attention.

Whoever can keep you distracted can influence you. Whoever can keep you anxious can make you consume. Whoever can keep you comparing yourself to others can make you feel permanently inadequate.

So the most realistic form of self-rescue is not becoming a perfect person overnight, but regaining ownership of your own mind.

Can you spend part of the day without short videos? Can you finish reading a long article? Can you practice one skill consistently for three months? Can you avoid making decisions when your emotions are at their peak? Can you stop being pulled around by other people’s displayed lives?

These things sound ordinary, but today they are rare.

Sleep, exercise, reading, writing, solitude, and reflection are not outdated self-help slogans. They are basic anchors for preserving agency in the age of algorithms.

Only when a person preserves attention can they preserve judgment. And only when they preserve judgment can they truly choose their own life.

The third step is to build real-world capabilities instead of relying only on the security of credentials.

Degrees still matter, but a degree alone can no longer protect a person.

What will be valuable in the future is a combination of abilities: not just passing exams, not just writing resumes, not just completing tasks, but actually solving problems.

Young people need to build several types of capabilities.

First, practical skills that can be delivered: writing, sales, editing, design, programming, nursing, repair work, teaching, consulting, project management, data analysis, photography, languages, and craft.

Second, the ability to collaborate with AI — to treat AI as a tool, not an enemy.

Third, the ability to communicate and earn trust. The more technological the age becomes, the more people need real cooperation.

And fourth, the most easily neglected capacity: physical and emotional endurance.

Without the body, all planning is empty. Without emotional stability, even good opportunities can be ruined from within.

Young people need to treat the body as an asset, instead of waiting until it collapses before trying to repair it.

The fourth step is to redefine respectability.

Many traditional white-collar jobs may become increasingly awkward in the future: respectable on the surface, but average in pay, limited in growth, highly replaceable, and emotionally draining.

By contrast, people who can solve concrete problems in the real world may become increasingly valuable.

True respectability is not about having a polished work environment. It is about whether you have bargaining power.

It is not about whether your job title sounds impressive. It is about whether you can still survive after leaving a particular platform.

It is not about whether you match someone else’s life timeline. It is about whether you have a sustainable way of living.

Respectability is not identity. Respectability is sustainability.

Young people do not need to remain trapped by the old idea that “office work is superior.” Nor do they need to hollow themselves out just to maintain the appearance of respectability.

The fifth step is to reduce manufactured desire without reducing life force.

Low desire is not necessarily failure. In an age of high housing costs, intense competition, and deep uncertainty, lowering certain desires can be a form of risk management.

Not everyone needs the biggest house, the nicest car, or the most standardized version of life.

But low desire must not become spiritual death.

You can choose not to pursue grand success, but you cannot stop caring about everything. You can reject consumerism, but you still need something you love. You can refuse to be trapped by the old system, but you still need to build new anchors for your life.

Learn a language seriously. Practice a sport over the long term. Maintain a few real friendships. Build an account that allows you to keep creating. Develop a skill that can earn money. Lower your cost of living. Protect your health. Build a small but stable circle.

None of this is lying flat.

It is a way of preserving yourself in an uncertain age.

Finally, young people need to accept one thing: this era will not hand you meaning.

It will only give you comparison, stimulation, anxiety, consumption, ranking, and uncertainty.

Meaning has to be built.

Camus did not write about Sisyphus to tell us that life is hopeless. He wrote about him to show that even after seeing the absurd clearly, a person can still choose not to surrender himself completely.

The rock will roll back down. The mountain path will repeat. The world may never give you an answer.

But you can still decide what is worth your energy and what is no longer worth sacrificing yourself for.

You cannot change housing prices by yourself. You cannot stop AI from reshaping the labor market. You cannot suddenly make class structures fair. You cannot make the world operate according to your ideals.

But you can decide not to treat the system’s failure as your own failure.

You can decide not to treat other people’s definition of success as the only possible life.

You can decide not to mistake anxiety for ambition.

You can decide not to mistake consumption for freedom.

You can decide not to mistake exhaustion for incompetence.

And you can decide not to mistake slowing down for decline.

This generation of young people is not refusing to work hard. They are beginning to understand that effort is not about proving they deserve a place in the old world. It is about building a place where they can still breathe after the old world has stopped working.

It is not about giving up struggle.

It is about refusing to struggle for a script that no longer works.

It is not about completely lying flat.

It is about putting energy into the things that can actually change one’s position.

The future may become more divided. A small number of people may control capital, technology, and cognitive leverage, while many others search for their place in instability.

But this does not mean ordinary people are doomed to sink passively.

As long as a person can reclaim attention, build real abilities, reduce false desires, create a small order of their own, and refuse to internalize old standards as self-shame, they still possess a kind of freedom.

Not a grand freedom. But a stubborn, resilient one.

The most important thing for young people in this era is not blind optimism, nor total rejection of the future.

It is the clear-eyed reconstruction of the future. Rescue yourself from old standards. Then build new abilities, new order, and new meaning.

This is not empty motivation. It is the most realistic form of resistance available to ordinary people in an absurd age.