Fake It Till You Make It: Millennials And Their Desperate Need For a New Personality

by Sofia Brontvein

Fake It Till You Make It: Millennials And Their Desperate Need For a New Personality

13 Oct 2025

Millennials were told to study hard, get good grades, and the world would open like a well-lit IKEA catalogue. Stable jobs, mortgages, a family, security. Instead, we graduated into recessions, gig economies, and housing markets that laugh in our faces. We are the first generation in modern history expected to be more educated than our parents — and still end up poorer.

It isn’t just vibes; it is data. Surveys show that 66% of millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout. Among young workers juggling multiple jobs, 42% say they are already burned out, according to Forbes. In the UAE, a study of teachers — who are supposed to be the calm in the storm — found 73.6% experiencing work-related burnout and 78.7% personal burnout. If even the teachers are fried, imagine the rest of us.

I know it in my own body. First, I studied until I literally fainted. I wasn’t chasing grades; I was chasing approval. Every lost night of sleep, every extra book read, every collapsed day was proof that I was serious, committed, worthy. Nobody tells you that the medal for overachieving is just exhaustion in new packaging.

Then I worked until the panic attacks arrived. I thought I could outrun my anxiety with longer hours, more projects, and more productivity. I had panic attacks in elevators, in meetings, on perfectly normal Tuesday mornings. Depression became my co-worker. And yet I still believed the lie: if I just worked harder, I could escape. You can’t outwork your own nervous system. It always catches up.

Image: Midjourney x The Sandy Times

So I tried the opposite: not rest, but noise. Partying became my escape hatch. Nights blurred with random faces and forgettable conversations, loud music and “fun” that always felt hollow in the morning. I mistook chaos for connection. I laughed too loudly, stayed out too late, pretended everything was fine. But the emptiness was louder than the music.

It took years of therapy and slow, boring self-development to accept a truth I should have known from the start: I have the right to live for myself, not to tick off a checklist that parents, employers, or society made up for me. Achievement without joy is just another kind of failure.

That is when cycling arrived. Not glamorous, not expensive — just a second-hand bike with flat pedals and no Strava. No Lycra army, no curated reels, no bib shorts. Just me and the desert. It started as survival. But over time, it became a transformation. Two years later, I am faster, stronger, lighter by 16 kilograms, and — more importantly — less consumed by anxiety. My sleep is deeper, my diet less chaotic, my routine more stable. Cycling didn’t just fix my mornings; it saved my life.

Image: Midjourney x The Sandy Times

People like to sneer: why make cycling your personality? As if the alternative is better — making your burnout, your job title, or your daily grind your personality. Millennials are stuck in a permanent midlife crisis that began in our twenties. We can’t afford houses; many of us can’t afford stability. So yes, we build ourselves around hobbies and passions. Around pottery, CrossFit, baking, salsa, fashion, dog parenting, niche obsessions. Call it cringe if you want. I call it scaffolding. Because if we can’t build wealth, we can at least build selves.

And in Dubai, this reinvention culture is magnified. This city doesn’t pause; it doesn’t forgive. It rewards constant performance, constant reinvention, constant proof you are not falling behind. It is thrilling, yes — but it is also terrifying. You need something real underneath the neon. Something that anchors you when the machine demands more. For me, that is cycling. For you, it might be art, cooking, music, design, or building a business from scratch. The name doesn’t matter. What matters is the act of choosing it.

Millennials live not only in a permanent midlife crisis but also in permanent performance. Identity is no longer something you simply are; it is something you show. A 2022 Bankrate survey found that 38% of millennials post on TikTok or Instagram specifically to appear more successful. That is not narcissism — that is survival in a world where perception can open doors faster than résumés.

And if personality used to be an inner compass, now it is also a feed. According to the American Library Association, 92% of millennials and Gen Z check social media daily, with a quarter checking multiple times per hour. This means that whatever “self” you are building is immediately subject to likes, shares, and algorithmic approval. Reinvention is not just internal therapy; it is public currency.

So when millennials build identities around hobbies — be it cycling, pottery, or dog parenting — it isn't trivial. It is structure, it is performance, it is a way of saying “this is who I am” in a culture that constantly erases us into statistics. Everyone builds a personality around something. For older generations, it was careers, family, politics, and religion. For us, it is movement, art, micro-communities. The form has changed, but the need has not.

So yes, I have made cycling part of my personality. Because it keeps me sane, stable, and alive in a world that feels designed to burn me out. We fake it till we make it, and sometimes the “faking” is exactly what saves us.

And if that makes me a cliché millennial? Fine. At least I am pedalling forward.

by Sofia Brontvein