Why We're Tired All the Time

Why We're Tired All the Time

An Honest Letter from Gen Z to the World

Dear World,

We’re tired.

Not the kind of tired that sleep can fix.

We’re tired in our bones. In our minds. In our souls.

And you keep asking us why.

You say we have everything—technology, convenience, opportunities.

But you forgot to mention we also inherited a burning planet, crashing economies, broken mental health, and a constant pressure to always be "something more."

We Scroll Ourselves to Sleep

We were raised on screens.

We learned to soothe anxiety with reels, silence with music, pain with memes.

We text more than we talk.

We feel seen by strangers online more than by people in our own homes.

And yet—we're lonely all the time.

We have 2,000 followers and no one to call when we're falling apart at 2 AM.

We Were Told We Could Be Anything

And now we’re paralyzed by everything.

Everyone’s successful by 25.

Everyone’s happy. Everyone’s glowing.

At least, that’s what we see.

What we don’t see is that behind every achievement post is someone else who’s burnt out, anxious, and wondering if this is all life has to offer.

We Live in a Loop

Wake up. Scroll.

Work or study. Scroll.

Eat. Scroll.

Sleep with our phones next to our faces, hoping a notification will give us a reason to feel alive.

We joke about depression because it's easier than admitting how much we're hurting.

We make memes about trauma because therapy is expensive, and we don't want to seem "too much" in a world that rewards lightness and filters.

Our Parents Call Us Lazy

But we watched them work jobs they hated for decades.

We saw what burnout looked like in their eyes.

We decided we wanted something different—but now we’re drowning in student debt, gig work, and imposter syndrome.

We were told to “follow our passion,”

but no one taught us how to rest without guilt,

how to say “no” without fear,

how to be present without performing.

We’re Living in a Time of Everything & Nothing

We can access any knowledge. Any person. Any moment in history.

And yet, we feel more lost than ever.

We want to change the world, but we don’t know where to begin.

Climate anxiety haunts us. Political division exhausts us.

And AI? It’s coming for our jobs before we even get hired.

So Yes, We’re Tired

Tired of always being "on."

Tired of pretending to be okay.

Tired of being told to hustle harder when our mental health is screaming for us to stop.

But Here's the Thing…

We’re also awakening.

We’re learning how to say "I don’t know."

We’re slowly unlearning perfection.

We’re starting to romanticize slow mornings, not hustle culture.

We’re building communities that say, “You’re enough—even when you’re not productive.”

We don’t want to numb out anymore.

We want to feel. To heal. To breathe without fear.

To live without apologizing for existing.

So, Dear World—

If we seem tired, it’s because we’re carrying generations of noise, pressure, and unprocessed pain.

But we’re also carrying something else:

The courage to feel it all—and still find our way forward.

Sincerely,

Gen Z