Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash

Survive. Live. Thrive.

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time walking with my mother in the evenings. No agenda. Just two people walking, and conversations that wander as much as we do.

Somewhere in those walks, this clicked.

Their generation — the boomers — was focused on survival. (fuck yes, I use em dash!) Stability was everything, but never guaranteed. Food on the table. A roof that held. That was the goal. That was success.

The next generation lived. They were not starting from zero, but nothing came easy either. So they built. Careers. Families. Homes. Responsibilities. Life was not questioned much. It was taken up, and carried forward.

And then comes us.

The generation that inherited just enough comfort to start asking uncomfortable questions.

What is all this for? What am I actually chasing? What does a good life even mean?

We like to think we are the ones “thriving.”

But if I am being honest, most days, it feels like we are just… searching.

Because when survival is handled, the problem shifts. It moves from the outside world to the inside.

Earlier, the struggle was visible. Now, it is abstract. Harder to name. Harder to solve.

More access. More freedom. More choices. Also more doubt. More comparison. More noise.

Somewhere along the way, certainty quietly disappeared. And maybe that is the trade-off.

Every generation solves one problem, only to inherit another.

So I am not entirely sure if we are the thriving generation.

Maybe we are just the ones trying to define what thriving even means.

And honestly, that might be the hardest job of them all.