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89% of UK Youth Feel Their Life Is Meaningless

89% of UK Youth Feel Their Life Is Meaningless

Spirituality

Philokalia

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Pretty startling.

A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness and purpose is a lack of finances, according to 45 per cent of respondents.

The survey, conducted by Yakult UK, found that 80 per cent of people across all age ranges felt they were living without purpose, but that number drops to 55 per cent for people over the age of 60.


https://summit.news/2019/08/05/poll-89-per-cent-of-uk-gen-zers-say-their-lives-are-meaningless

Do you think the problem is purely secular, or is there a spiritual dimension to this?

I think that spiritually aware people can feel purpose in their life even if they are poor, but people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.

w

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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
They are raised to think that they are a glorified animal whose struggle and meaning in life is for material gain

E

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@whodey

I think the problem is that there is no purpose in life except to make money and live a great single life or couple with no kids.

Travel, outdoor adventure, perhaps be a dazzling socialite, this is what makes life worth living.

Rajk999
Kali

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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
Switch places with a poor country and see how fast that changes.

divegeester
watching in dismay

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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
Millennials; a generation of expectant Morrisseys who have more going for them than any other generation of their age and yet cannot get out bed without checking Facebook and Instagram for updates on all their so called friendlies who they don’t really a crap about.

Btw, I’m stereotyping and generalising to make your thread more interesting.

E

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@divegeester said
Millennials; a generation of expectant Morrisseys who have more going for them than any other generation of their age and yet cannot get out bed without checking Facebook and Instagram for updates on all their so called friendlies who they don’t really a crap about.

Btw, I’m stereotyping and generalising to make your thread more interesting.
1 in 5 millenials say they do not have a friend.

Philokalia

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@whodey said
They are raised to think that they are a glorified animal whose struggle and meaning in life is for material gain
Spot on.

I think that even if many people do not have this thought animating them consciously, it does animate their subconscious.

It is also that you see in the very rationale that people use these days, too. People say well, of course teenagers need to sleep with one antoher; they have that biological urge, and this comes to be a means used to justify all manner of behavior that people want to justify. This leads to people being irrational, decadent actors without much healthy self-esteem because they themselves feel like they are just animals serving a biological need.

I do not even think of my dog in these terms. Yet, people think of themselves in those terms.

IP

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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
Spirituality has indeed nothing to do with money, and indeed the two may be inversely proportional, and being 'spiritual' by the way has nothing to do with any god, either. I give you Budhism as an example.
It's a depressing statistic which you present us with, and I look at young people in the UK now and see a spiritual desert. I have always, at least in retrospect, felt lucky to have been born when was born, and have the 70's as my formative years.
We took too many drugs, drank too much alcohol, smoked too many cigarettes (I still do, oops, there's a confession) and listened to great music, and most of us survived to tell the tale. There was a social, political and spiritual dynamism which is lacking now, we were all idealists, working and fighting for a better world. We were naive of course, but that's not really the point, we believed in ourselves and each other, and had a gas whilst we were doing it. Our lives had more meaning and purpose than we knew what to do with. (And we did it all without god, or money).
So, what happened? Why is the 'youth of today' no longer the power - house of social change which it once was? Why do they seem to feel powerless in the face of their own future, and rather seem to regard it as somebody else's responsibility? I don't know, maybe they feel worn down by too many laws, rules and restrictions which they feel unable to kick against. If I strike up a roll - up in a place where it isn't allowed my nephews and niece go apoplectic, there's no guts to them anymore, there's too much acceptance of things being as they are, and no will to change them. British society is stuck, and presently divided (I won't mention the 'B' word), and it's a nasty time to be growing up. Those who have, have, and cling on to their inherited worldly goods like it's the holy - grail of life, and those who don't have have no idea how to get it; they are crushed, they have no spirit for the fight, and one could get quite depressed about it, if one were not so damnably happy most of the time, but that's probably because I had a good youth...Sorry, beyond that I can't really help.

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@philokalia said
A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.
Maybe people who feel rootless or aimless should turn to Islam, or Hinduism, or Christianity or Judaism or some other religion. That might help. They'd have to find their way to believing in supernatural causality though. Perhaps if they believe that some kind of everlasting life awaits them after they die and their life on Earth ends, they will create a framework of meaning and purpose for themselves.

E

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Actually it is a natural result of the nanny state.

Unless you buy into the your purpose in life is to better society a nanny state makes life futile.

Remember 4 legs good, two legs bad...
4 legs good, two legs better!

Philokalia

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@indonesia-phil said
Spirituality has indeed nothing to do with money, and indeed the two may be inversely proportional, and being 'spiritual' by the way has nothing to do with any god, either. I give you Budhism as an example.
It's a depressing statistic which you present us with, and I look at young people in the UK now and see a spiritual desert. I have always, at least in retrospect, ...[text shortened]... f the time, but that's probably because I had a good youth...Sorry, beyond that I can't really help.
I think that the spiritual boom of the WWII era remained with your generation to some degree.

For instance, even among the hippies there was a concept of the divine and a desire to be closer to God as they conceptualized it. There were a lot of fantastical and inaccurate ideas about the soul and karma floating around.

Even the hare-brained concept of free love was, to some degree, rooted in something spiritual and mystical, and this came out in a lot of the psychadelic music and flirtation with Eastern religion.

But today all that has been passed forward is the decadence. Yes, I am aware that there is some amount of a surge in astrology and wicca, but generally speaking, the younger generation is increasingly aspiritual, and simply purely hedonistic. Of course, to some degree I am generalizing, but it is necessary to speak in generalizations when we are analyzing generations.

It could also be true that I am a bit wrong. I just haven't lived in the West that much. All of my adult life has been abroad.

F

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@philokalia said


The survey, conducted by Yakult UK..
Do you have a link to the research itself? I have found pretty much the same press release verbatim on a few far-right blogs ~ and Alex Jones has been talking about it ~ but there are rather conspicuously no links to the survey or to the data/methodolgy itself. I can't find a source at Yakult.

T

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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
lol.

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Rajk999
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@indonesia-phil said
Spirituality has indeed nothing to do with money, and indeed the two may be inversely proportional, and being 'spiritual' by the way has nothing to do with any god, either. I give you Budhism as an example.
It's a depressing statistic which you present us with, and I look at young people in the UK now and see a spiritual desert. I have always, at least in retrospect, ...[text shortened]... f the time, but that's probably because I had a good youth...Sorry, beyond that I can't really help.
I think what you are trying to say is that life becomes meaningful when you have challenges to take on, and goals to achieve. The British youth quite likely are lacking that drive that makes life interesting.

There is an old chinese curse that goes May all your dreams come true

caissad4
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@philokalia said
Pretty startling.

[quote] A new poll out of the UK reveals that a staggering 89 per cent of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness ...[text shortened]... ut people who are without God can feel despair even when wealthy, and that's what we're seeing here.
"Each to his own way, I'll go mine
Best of luck with what you find"
from the song We Used to Know by Jethro Tull
I thing the purpose or meaning of life is to "live life".
Searching for some "elusive meaning" to life usually diminishes our energies which could be better used.

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