You wanna look trendy in the Bentley
Be a snob and never act friendly
You wanna have big fame, let me explain
What happens to these stars and their big brains
First they get played like all damn day
Long as you sell everything will be okay
Then you get dissed by the media and fans
Things never stay the same way they began

Western kids, especially those in America, are constantly pushed to be what our culture defines as successful. While it doesn't always look like a rockstar's life, there is a strong urge to have that important white-collar job with a high-dollar paycheck. 

My fellow middle-class millennials and I were inundated with the idea that if we weren't somewhere along the lines of a doctor, lawyer, or upper management in some corporate building, then we weren't living up to our full potential. We were told that if we didn't get our act together in school we'd never go to college and we'd wind up being a mechanic or a plumber...as if that was a bad thing. 

Girls had it worse. They were told that if they wound up staying home with the kids then something went wrong. Being reliant on a man for income was a fate worse than any other, and to fully embrace their independence and empowerment they needed to go off to a University and then thrust themselves into a corporate job. 

Moreover, we were told to wait to get married and have kids. I, like many of my fellow millennials, was always told that none of that should happen until my 30s. 

To be sure, all of this advice that was given to us by our parents and trusted elders came from a good place, but good intention doesn't stop any of this from being bad advice. 

Our society is now unhappier than it's ever been. 

While many factors play a role, such as the pandemic's lasting effect on almost every aspect of life, the satisfaction levels are lower than they've been in quite some time. 

According to a 2023 survey by BambooHR.com, a significant drop in employee happiness has been seen since 2020 and only seems to be getting faster. The website has given this drop the nickname "The Great Gloom":

But so far, 2023 mirrors the dramatic, atypical patterns we saw during the first months of the pandemic. Employee happiness is plunging dramatically, with no signs of recovery.

April 2023 saw the highest level of employees identifying as detractors (18%), while the average percentage of promoters trended downward slightly. Employee happiness reached another low point of the last few years in June 2023, with an eNPS of 37.

"Despite having the worst of the pandemic behind us, people are just more unhappy than they've been before," Anita Grantham of BambooHR said. "Supposedly we have found more work-life harmony. And companies say they are caring for their employees like they never have before.

"But what have we generated? Unhappiness," she said.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, women are particularly unhappy, with reports of depression, anxiety, and loneliness plaguing the females of the species despite them being more successful in the business sector than ever before.

Don't think that men are getting away unscathed. Men too are reporting lower and lower happiness as well according to the General Social Survey: 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, men were the most unhappy when data was first collected in 1972, with only 27% of men reporting that they were “very happy” compared to 33% of women. In 2018, happiness levels bottomed out again, but men between the ages of 18 to 35 fell to an all-time low with only 22% of men reporting that they were “very happy” compared to 28% of women. Some 18% of men reported they were “not too happy” compared to 14% of women.

The pandemic only made things worse — for both men and women. In 2021, only 21% of men reported they were “very happy” and 18% of women. Meanwhile, rates of being “not too happy” climbed to 24% of men and 25% of women.

 What's the story, Wishbone? 

There are many theories as to what's going on, but the answer is probably more simple than we think. 

Our culture has been turned upside down and we're currently facing a crisis of displacement and misplacement. Men have been ejected out of their role in society as women have been forced into it. 

Men, for instance, have been told that they need to succeed in order to garner a high status and attract women, start a family, and provide for them all, including their children's own path to college, home ownership, and more. 

But men have been denigrated by mainstream culture to the point of being society's whipping boy. We're booted out of positions and opportunities simply for being men. Popular culture tells men they're toxic for simply being masculine, and are constantly at risk of being labeled a villain for doing something as simple as approaching a woman romantically or striving for success in the corporate world. 

Success for men is a rigged game. 

For women, the story is the opposite but the ending is the same. They're being pushed to fill corporate roles, to work long and hard hours, and to succeed. To be sure, they're more successful than they've ever been, but they're lonelier and more anxiety-ridden than ever. Their higher status has made their dating life a disaster as they seek more successful men, a pool that is drying up faster all the time. 

Moreover, modernity has taught both sexes not to trust each other. Women are pressured to "not need a man" and to treat them as objects, not people. More love is to be given to the pursuit of "success" than a spouse or romantic pursuit. Men, meanwhile, have become disenchanted with the dating world and have begun walking away from it altogether. 

(READ: Women Want to Know Why Men Don't Want to Marry Anymore...Allow Me)

Men have been taken away from their place as breadwinners and women have been pushed away from their natural role as caretakers, or worse, kept there while being forced to also be breadwinners. What's more, both sexes have been pushed away from each other, leaving an instinctual urge unfulfilled, increasing feelings of depression and anxiety that only grow the more people age. 

In our pursuit of "success," we've lost sight of what success is. 

Jesus once asked, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" It's a question worth pondering. We keep looking to succeed in a society that defines success with money, big houses, trophy wives or husbands, fame, influence, a corner office on an upper floor, and other Earthly pursuits, but while these things are nice, what's the point of them if they make you unhappy. 

Wealth doesn't complete you. It greases wheels, but it doesn't bring happiness. 

The pursuit of happiness differs for each person, but there are some undeniable facts of nature that we've turned our back on in order to obey the trappings of modernity. Perhaps real happiness isn't in what today's society calls "success" but what God and our very nature have urged us to do. 

Return to valuing the nuclear family, masculinity should be embraced and respected, men should be returned to their place as head of the household and encouraged to embrace hard work and ladder climbing, while women should be encouraged to embrace their caregiving and nurturing nature, not reject it in the name of competing with men. 

Perhaps there we'll find actual success, also known as contentment and happiness.