Welcome to Your Quarter Life Crisis

This article is the story of my life right now. I am 25. I am living the quarter life crisis. What makes this article hilarious though is that it is so <i>true</i>.<p>Yes, its a selfish, narcissistic feeling. But in my defense it was how I survived college. Society pressures you to think selfishly because when you are in undergrad all you think about is "I need to get a high GPA to get into a good grad school" or "I need good grades to land a good job" or "I need a good job to pay off my debt" etc etc. It's all me me me!<p>No one pushes you to think about others. No one forces community service upon you. No one tells you to go serve the homeless. These are all things that are <i>essential</i> to gaining a full perspective of life, yet there is almost no one encouraging you to follow that untraveled path.<p>My mom recently had good advice for this quarter life crisis, even though we didn't refer to this feeling as such. She said, "Life isn't clean." There is no route to success, no chemistry for happiness, no direct path to relaxation. We are all meant to encounter these feelings because that is just how life is and that is how we learn what we <i>truly</i> want.

This article is a treasure trove of narcissism and self-pity. I don't mean that to be criticism; I think it's an accurate depiction of the malaise that comes from having nothing truly important to worry about. I recognize a bit of myself in it.

Guess I'm even more glad that I dropped out of high school, started hacking, played in bands, lived/worked in europe for a few years, came back to the states and now work full time from home for clients and my own start up. Maybe I hit my quarter life crisis in 9th grade but I realized what my culture offered me after school was over appealed about as much sitting in school waiting for it to be over.... Maybe all the stereotypical hardcore/straight edge lyrics about "taking control" of your life actually hit home for me - but regardless I actually love my life at 27 - know where I've been, know where I'm going and only regret that it is passing so quickly.

Newsflash: Twenty-somethings with no ambition will eventually realize that they have no ambition and will get sad. :-(<p>There, I just saved you 10 minutes of reading the article.

Durkheim wrote about this more than a hundred years ago. It's called Anomie.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie</a>

<i>1. You make an impulse purchase. It’s</i> ... <i>c) your fifth beer on a Monday night.</i><p>Umm, what if I bought it deliberately a couple days ago?<p>Anyway, there's nothing new about this. At the age of 25, men and women should both be in the process of child-rearing. Deviate from that and nature will send you signals that something is wrong. But the money and luxury of the modern world allow this unnatural state.<p><a href="http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/wolfe_me.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/wolfe_me.pdf</a><p><i>The new alchemical dream is: changing one's personality—remaking, remodeling, elevating, and polishing one's very self... and observing, studying, and doting on it. (Me!) This had always been an aristocratic luxury, confined throughout most of history to the life of the courts, since only the very wealthiest classes had the free time and the surplus income to dwell upon this sweetest and vainest of pastimes</i>

I just read that, and laughed.<p>I live in South America, doing volunteer work nearly full-time, with a group of expat friends and a much larger extended family of local friends ... I come back to the states to work for 3 months out of the year.<p>(Yes -- I work only 1 week in 4. I do a lot of surfing down here. )<p>I don't want to sound smug, but I want to say that the malaise described is not inevitable. I got out when I was 23 or so, and I feel like I've managed to dodge a bullet. Starting my third year of my new life, and I can't imagine being any happier. And my imaginator is in working order.

A lot of this comes from being lied to their whole lives. How many of these people were told (in many different ways, some subtle, some not) while growing up that school and college and grad school were important and the key to a meaningful life? Sorry, but in reality, there is no universal shortcut to having a meaningful life. There was nothing special about the structure you've gotten used to in two decades of schooling. You have to accept this and move on. This part of the crisis has gotten much worse in the last half-century or so -- the unquestioned faith many middle-class urbanites now have in schools and colleges.

For a much more entertaining version, rent "Vicky Christina Barcelona" by Woody Allen.

It has nothing to do with this article but I suggested the name "Quarterlife Crisis" for my company's kickball team, and it stuck. Perhaps appropriately, they did not win.

good ending :)<p>He listlessly works through lunch, then goes to the bar after work to meet up with some university friends, where they talk about their jobs and make ironic jokes about other people. Back at home, he wonders why he feels so gross and empty after spending time with them, but it’s mostly better than being alone.<p>good description of my slightly younger hipster sorta-friends lol

I have lots of friends that are feeling the pain of a courter life crisis and I sometimes feel a bit of it too. I question myself with things like: Why have I not started my own startup yet? And I am really happy in my life and my job.

Crikey. And I thought that baby-boomers were self-obsessed and whiny... I guess their kids are even worse.

Lovely.