The "What next?" generation.

After reading a friend's blog entry today I started to think about one of the rough questions that I pulled out of his entry. Most of the people I know in my rough age bracket are in an almost constant state of "What next?".

It seems that many people in my generation don't feel secure in their jobs or their future. Most people I know who went to college changed majors more than once after realizing that their initial choice wasn't what they thought it was going to be. Some of those people that eventually picked a final major and graduated with a degree in it ended up working at places that have nothing to do with their education. Some friends who do have jobs that match their education have worked at a few different companies already.

It just feels (to me) like many people feel like they can't really have a true purpose in life besides helping someone else become rich while struggling to survive. Quite a few people seem to feel that they can't trust their employers to take care of them in return for helping them to make a profit. I've noticed a lot of people that suck at their jobs end up getting promoted to management and end up delegating everything to people who make a shitload less money than they do while they sit in a comfortable chair at an expensive desk by a window and do practically nothing while someone opens their mail, answers their phone and schedules their appointments.

What happens when the time comes for us to "retire"? Will there be such a thing by then? Or will we be forced to work until we die because jumping from job to job (without great benefits) without enough money to put into savings or retirement accounts be the norm for my generation and the ones that come after?

I think the main hopeless feeling comes from realizing that everyone is just a cog in an unstoppable machine that (generally) has different ideals than the people who are making the machine move. In order to survive you do what it takes even if the ideals of the organization don't match your own. If you decide you aren't content you are reminded somehow of just how replaceable you are, while you are left to contemplate the question of: "What next?". Where do I go from here? How the fuck did I end up here?

Maybe I just think too much. Maybe everyone else is perfectly happy and I'm just not satisfied with the choices I've made. Maybe I'm just not confident in myself. Is it just me or does anyone feel this way?