New Delhi, March 5 -- For the first time in history, four generations are running on empty at the same time. Not because they lack discipline or because nobody has a planner anymore, but because modern life has become relatively unliveable in a very specific way. And yet the advice we keep handing out is almost laughably small: manage your time better, find your balance, figure it out.

But this is not a time-management problem. It is an identity problem. A structural collision between work, family, ambition, duty and the shrinking space left for the self. "I feel guilty even when I rest," said a young professional in his early twenties, almost casually, "Like I'm cheating." Nothing terrible had happened. No big failure. Just the creeping...