I’m not promoting it, nor should anyone. I know people who have taken their own lives, and I myself feel a bit depressed—thoughts about taking my life cross my mind almost daily. But when I look around the world, I wonder how people endure their struggles.
Take Japan, for example. They have long school days, six days a week, and after graduating, you’re competing with hundreds of others for the same office jobs. Sure, most people eventually get hired, but it often starts as an internship, which can be a miserable experience. You’re not there as a full employee with proper treatment; you’re just fighting for the chance to get promoted to a regular salary position.
Japan’s work culture makes it even worse: the government mandates an 8-hour workday, but everyone knows that if you only work the required 8 hours, you’ll never get that promotion. So people push themselves to work 14 hours a day, every day, just to keep up.
It’s not just Japan, either; countries like China are also known for their grueling work culture. However, in China, it’s usually possible to find a liveable job, even if it means working 10 exhausting hours a day with little chance for advancement or quality of life.
In contrast, Western countries have their own pressures. A degree is often required to get decent employment, and to stand out, you likely need a master’s degree or more. On top of that, you need to demonstrate experience, which means more years of unpaid work, internships, or low-paying jobs just for the chance to climb the ladder. After all that, you might still end up in a thankless job that could lay you off at any time.
Meanwhile, the cost of living is absurd—rent often consumes 40% or more of your monthly income, food prices are climbing, and wages aren’t keeping up. AI is advancing rapidly and could take over many jobs soon, leaving even fewer options. As humans, we’re social creatures by nature, but no one has time for building real communities anymore because everything is an endless competition. Between job pressure, media manipulation, and the suffocating expectations set by social media, the weight is unbearable for so many.
And yet, despite all this, the suicide rate—while tragic—is not as high as one might expect for the number of people suffering from depression. This is a good thing, of course, but it does beg the question: why isn’t it higher? With all these pressures and hardships, what keeps so many people going?
i heard everyone company complain about gen z, but can we even blame them?
I dunno about the west, but i'll talk about my country (generally in the middle east)
Most people don't know what a "good" life looks like. Take this for example: you live under a brutal, autocratic monarchy that violently suppresses people that want change, and the working conditions/economy are pretty shit, too. That sounds like a pretty bad life, right? Well here, it's just the average normal day. You know what makes it more ridiculous? That some people like it here, despite all of these problems.
We don't really have anything else to compare our lives to. Everytime i travel to a western country, it practically feels like a different, almost perfect world [in comparison to here, ofc]. So we don't really know we live like shit, and i guess as a result of that we tend to be less depressed? I don't know.
Including this, is culture; suicide/depression is very frowned upon. It's the ultimate treason against life, and is not a sad thing, it's something to be ashamed of. This inclines people, even if they are suicidal, to stay in silence. And mental health is an almost never touched topic (for the developing world in general).