Generate a Stand-Up Routine

So I turned 30 recently, which is weird because I still look both too young to have my life together and too old to be this confused at the self-checkout.

Like, the machine starts yelling “Unexpected item in the bagging area,” and I’m like, “Same, dude.”

We’re the most over-therapized, under-functioning generation in history. Everyone’s in therapy, nobody’s okay. I have friends who can’t answer an email in under six weeks, but they can say “I’m noticing some activation in my nervous system” like they’re narrating a National Geographic special.

We’re so emotionally aware now it’s getting in the way of basic things.

• “Hey, can you take out the trash?”
• “I hear that request, but I don’t have the capacity.”
• “It’s a bag of banana peels, not a second job.”

Dating now is just trauma-informed ghosting.

You don't get dumped, you get a paragraph: “Hey, I just don’t have the bandwidth for intimacy as I’m honoring my inner child.” Okay, cool. Tap your inner child on the shoulder and tell him to give me my hoodie back.

And online dating is a job. It’s onboarding. It’s a survey.

Every profile is like:

• “Love travel, communication, and brunch.” Cool, so you like food, talking, and not being in your house. Wow. Brave.

Everybody’s “low drama,” too. If you write “low drama” you are 100% the main character in at least three group chats.

Then you meet in person, and every answer is a TED Talk: “Tell me something about you.” “Well, my attachment style is—” Nope. No. We just met. Give me your favorite cereal first. Then we’ll do childhood wounds.

The bar for men is subterranean right now. A guy will return a text and women are like “Oh my god, he communicates.” The man literally said “yeah” and now he’s king of empathy.

I saw a guy on a date say, “I’ve been working on myself,” and what he meant was: he bought one plant. That’s it. One basil that’s barely alive, and somehow it’s his “growth journey.”

Social media ruined our sense of scale. People are like: “I’m manifesting six figures and a yacht.” You don’t even answer group emails. Start by manifesting replying “All set, thanks.”

We’re all obsessed with productivity hacks. Every video: “5 a.m. cold plunge, 75 hard, lemon water, journal, gym.” Meanwhile, I feel like a Navy SEAL if I answer an email I’ve been dodging for three months. I hit send and I’m like, “Mission accomplished. Extract the team.”

Everyone’s got a “morning routine.” One girl’s like: “I wake at 4:30, do yoga, gratitude journaling, read 20 pages, and meditate.” Ma’am, at 4:30 I am in REM sleep arguing with my 8th grade math teacher.

I tried a 5 a.m. routine. You know what happened? At 3 p.m. I died. Fully dead. Just a body with a Fitbit.

And we’re terrified of aging while also tired at 27. People are like: “Life begins at 40!” Does it? Because my knee ends at stairs.

We were raised on “Follow your dreams,” and now all our dreams want benefits and dental. They’re like, “We can’t survive on vibes.”

I grew up thinking adults knew things. Then I became an adult and realized everyone is just Googling “How often do you wash a towel” like it’s a bomb defusal manual. (For the record, we are all too confident with our answers to that.)

You ever call your parents for life advice and realize they were guessing the whole time? I asked my mom: “Hey, how did you know what you were doing with kids?” “Oh, we didn’t.” Sick. So my entire personality is improv.

But honestly, that’s kind of freeing, right? If nobody fully knows what they’re doing, then you’re not behind—you’re just in the group project of humanity where everyone’s pretending they did the reading.

So tonight, if you’re stressed about your life, just remember: Somewhere, right now, a grown man is googling “how to boil an egg,” and that man is allowed to vote, drive, and say “Let’s circle back” in meetings.

You’re doing fine.

Thank you guys, you’ve been great.