Months ago, I received this reader question: “It feels like I’ve done everything right, and yet I can barely make ends meet. Has life always been this…hard?”

This stuck with me for a long time. They weren't the first to ask this, or the second or third. And ultimately, this question became the focus of this special two-part series.

Because when I first started writing about personal finance in 2018, I believed the rules of the game were fixed, simple, and universally applicable. I had the tonic that was going to make my generation rich, because I figured the things that worked for me would work for everyone.

The perilous two years that followed—aka the pandemic—opened my eyes to just how complex life is in the 21st century, particularly for those coming of age in it—and this mini-series is my attempt at making sense of the world around us politically, economically, and culturally. (And yes, the financial implications at the collective and individual levels.) I'm also joined by Malcolm Harris, author of Kids These Days (https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/will-collyer/kids-these-days/9781478992332/), which I quote throughout the episode.