Dear Dáithí: I’m stressed by pressures of modern life in Dublin — how do I stay hopeful? 

Dáithí O'Sé: "You’re 27 and living in Dublin, and you love that. The problem is the dead money and the prospect of owning a place is always on your mind. Yet you don’t want to leave Dublin, at the moment."

I'm 27, living in Dublin, renting with two friends, working full-time in marketing. On paper, things look grand — I’ve a job, a social life, I go to the gym, all that. But underneath, I’m constantly stressed. 

The rent is sky-high, and I’ve zero chance of buying a place unless I leave the city or move back home, which feels like going backwards.

Everyone seems to be getting engaged or emigrating. I’m dating, but it’s mostly apps and ghosting and it’s exhausting. My parents don’t understand — they bought a house at my age and had two kids. They say my generation expect everything in an instant and if I hear the story about how they saved for three years for the dining room set again, I’ll scream.

I feel like I’m doing everything I’m “supposed” to, but still going nowhere fast. I’m scared I’ll wake up at 35 in the same rented room, with nothing to show for the decade.

How do you stay hopeful when life feels like a treadmill?

I think what we have here is a story of a generation at a point in time, and that time is 2025. With this story in the news every day I’d imagine it’s like chasing a car that keeps speeding up as you come close to catching it.

Your situation is stressful for a few reasons: rents are high and it’s very expensive to buy where you are at the moment; your friends, in your mind, are a step or two ahead of you in certain areas, and your parents come from a different era and that’s where their understanding of all this is stuck.

Where I can help you here is to look at what we can control and how we deal with what can can’t.

Here is what every 27-year-old doesn’t want to hear, and if it was said to me at that age, it would have vexed me — calm down.

With all that’s going on, it’s easy to get swept away into a cloud of fog where it’s very hard to find your way.

You’re 27, have a good job, go to the gym and are minding yourself. Again, your version of dating is of the time, I’m told, and I can see how it has been exhausting. It does sound like you are doing the ghosting and it’s time you got out of the apps and into place where real people hang out.

You need to start being proactive in your life. You need to stop looking around and into the ‘neighbours’ gardens’ and focus on your own.

So, your friends are engaged, so what? That has nothing to do with you. I didn’t get married until I was 36, so you’ve plenty of time.

I don’t like the fact also that your parents don’t understand the current situation either, but from your point, who cares if they had a house and family at 27.

That has no relevance in today’s world, and it certainly shouldn’t make you feel bad about anything. They had it tough in one way, there is no one denying that, and you in another, and they are blind to what is happening to you. So, you want this to stop because really it is driving you mad.

I would show your parents what you pay for rent and what living costs are today. I’d imagine it will be an eye opener for them.

It’s one thing to hear these stories on the news, it’s another when it happens to one of your own. The dining room set might wilt with the weight of your agreement when you tell them.

On the whole issue of buying a house, I’ve thought long and hard about this.

You’re 27 and living in Dublin, and you love that. The problem is the dead money and the prospect of owning a place is always on your mind. Yet you don’t want to leave Dublin, at the moment.

How about you buy a small place down the country where it is less expensive, a doer-upper, and go labouring yourself at the weekends. There are lots of grants available to do this now. Even a one-bed to get started, in a few years, sell and buy a two-bed. This is what I did, that’s what so many people did.

Some people don’t think like that now and go straight for the big house. If you’ve a small place now, the rent will pay the mortgage and will be increasing in value all the time. The money you’re spending in rent in Dublin won’t be dead money now, as you’ll have another place of your own and something to show for it, as you say.

Another thing, don’t worry about feeling like you’re on a treadmill. I know it’s boring and monotonous, but you’re still keeping up if you’re on it.

It’s not a bad thing at all. We just need to keep your mind active; it’s like being in the gym and thinking of different ways to keep you motivated and silence the negative thoughts that come into your head by challenging them, and in one way, that’s what we’re doing here.

By doing this, being constantly stressed should be a thing of the past, until you do meet someone and get married. I’m joking obviously. Well, maybe.

So, stop looking at your friends thinking they have it all sorted, the grass is always greener, but twice as hard to cut remember.

Chat to your parents and say, look this is what it costs nowadays, and can you please stop with the ‘in my day’ stuff, it’s gone past its sell by date like the dining room set. If you really want to get on the property ladder start thinking outside the box, don’t be waiting for anything to get moving and believe in yourself, because when you believe in yourself you don’t have to convince anyone else.