Why are more and more people choosing to “lie flat” now?

Cat Brother has been thinking about a question lately:
In the past, no matter how much suffering people endured, and how many hardships they went through, most of them would still probably believe that the future would be better.
But now it’s not like that! For example, more and more people now,
even though they’re still young, they’ve already started choosing “lie flat” in advance.
Cat Brother has also seen plenty of cases like this.
So, are today’s young people really just lazier?
Cat Brother thinks: maybe it’s not that simple.
For example, in the past,
an ordinary person: worked seriously and lived frugally.
Slowly accumulating, maybe they could end up buying a home.
Raising a family, and even possibly changing their social class.
Although the process was painful,
at least everyone believed that:
there is a connection between effort and returns.
But what’s confusing many people now?
It’s actually not that they’re afraid of suffering.
It’s that they’re thinking: do all these hardships I’m enduring actually have meaning?
For example, a young person:
working overtime every day until the early hours, and even on weekends they don’t dare to rest.
After a few years, the salary has indeed gone up a bit.
But their health has collapsed, and the stress is still getting bigger.
When they look back: they still can’t buy a home, and life hasn’t really improved.
They even don’t know what they actually like, or what they’re really pursuing.
At this point, they may start to doubt:
is it that I’m not trying hard enough,
or is there something wrong with this path itself?
So many people choose to reduce their desires,
not buying luxury cars, and not chasing consumption.
Some even don’t get married, don’t have children, and not even start businesses.
Someone might tell them:
“Why don’t you have the drive of young people?”
But what they might think inside is: I’m not without dreams.
I’m just afraid to use ten years of my youth to trade for a future that may not even exist.
Of course. There are also those who believe:
people say young people today just can’t take hardship.
Weren’t conditions worse in the past? Weren’t people able to get through it differently?
That view isn’t wrong either, because in any era,
the ones who truly change their fate have always been a minority.
But Cat Brother thinks the biggest problem now is this:
In the past, suffering was to “get to shore,” and you might actually get to shore.
But for many people now, they don’t know where the shore is.
So more and more people start choosing another way of living—this way is
less competition, less anxiety, less need to prove themselves,
and to give more of their time back to themselves.
But Cat Brother also wants to remind everyone:
“Lie flat” may not be the problem. The real danger is:
you think you’re resting. In reality, you’re slowly losing your competitiveness.
A person can not go to work, but they can’t stop growing.
You can reduce your desires, but you can’t give up on yourself.
Because the world won’t stop changing just because you step out of the competition.
And the Earth won’t stop turning just because you’re missing.
So Cat Brother thinks:
true psychological maturity isn’t about never-ending, nonstop striving.
And it’s not about lying flat forever without end.
It should be knowing:
when you should charge forward, and when you should stop, rest, and relax.
When you should change direction.
Finally, Cat Brother wants to ask everyone:
Do you think more and more people are choosing to lie flat because young people are getting more and more afraid of hardship?
Or is it that in this era, the returns for effort are becoming lower and lower?
Or maybe it’s simply that everyone has started looking for another way to live?
What’s your take on this?