What Are 20's Longing For?

Gen Z is on a quest to find the good life.

Listen in: What Are 20’s Longing For?

The 20’s is a time of transition from college to adulting, requiring tenacity and adaptation. It is also a time of making big decisions about career, relationships, and finding your place in the world. In this next episode of our ongoing series, What Are You Longing For? we discuss how the weightiness of life is pressing in for people in their 20’s, and how the sharp edges of reality are becoming more pronounced.

As “digital natives”, 20’s have never experienced life without screens, social media, texting, and the internet. Although more connected than ever, 20’s are finding that real and meaningful relationships are harder to come by. This makes dealing with the pressures and expectations of this season of life feel even more isolating and overwhelming. Reality is painful and hard, so it’s easy to understand why many 20’s are drawn to living online because that is a way to escape.

Ever present is the lure of the “good life” as procured on social media: the best vacation, the most extravagant reveal party, the perfect latte…20’s are searching for the good things in life while often struggling to tolerate anything that challenges their ideals.

The picture of life they’ve developed from social media doesn’t contain a lot of suffering or hardship or boredom. They want their lives to be both secure and exciting. Their self-directed reality needs to meet or even exceed the experiences of those around them. They are living a contradiction: told that they shouldn't care what anyone else thinks, while also knowing that everything they put out into the world can be evaluated with a “like” button.

People in their twenties are living a contradiction: told that that they shouldn't care what anyone else thinks, while also knowing that everything they put out into the world can be evaluated with a “like” button.

What may surprise you is that 20's are open, curious, teachable, and hungry for authenticity, real community, and practical wisdom for everyday life. That’s what makes this conversation with Lynn Roush and Crossing 20’s directors Nathan Tiemeyer and Colleen Luley so interesting.

As 20’s are coming of age, they’re finding out that the source of the good life doesn’t come from today’s digital landscape, but from the ancient teachings of Jesus who points to where true life is found.