The Quarter Life Crisis in Brief
A Short Primer for Twentysomethings
Previously unnoticed by the mainstream, the Quarter Life Crisis is now entering the consciousness of North American popular culture. It is a state of intellectual and spiritual crisis that usually strikes individuals in their twenties, mostly affecting graduates and those just striking out on their own. Like its midlife counterpart, the Quarter Life Crisis is a time of critical reflection, soul-searching, and re-evaluation of existing personal relationships, career paths, and physical and mental well-being.
Transition from Classroom to Workplace
Research into the Quarter Life Crisis is in its infancy, but one preliminary common factor among those going through the experience is the transition from a more academic setting to the workforce. Dana Quinn, Founder and President of Quarterlife101.com, notes that 70 million members of Generation Y – those born between 1980 and 1995 – are now beginning to enter the working world in North America. Quinn believes these twentysomethings have different expectations of what life will be like after school than their predecessors. “We’re civic minded”, he says, “We want to make a difference in the world, and we want our work to mean something...we value life over work.”
The transition from the comfortable boundaries of college to an apathetic, isolated, and often hostile economic world is disturbing to many twentysomethings. Idealism gives way to a harsh realism that causes many individuals to re-evaluate their career paths. Many are children of two working parents, so-called “latchkey kids”, who question the pursuit of money over family. Unlike past generations, they recognize the difficulty in segregating “career” from other aspects of life such as “relationships”, “health”, and “home”. Thus, what begins as simple questioning of one’s vocation becomes a general critique of every aspect of one’s life.
A Personal Search for Meaning While Still Young
Like its midlife counterpart, the Quarter Life Crisis leads to a general feeling of malaise and isolation. Nostalgia comes into play as twentysomethings yearn for the simplicity of younger days, hence the proliferation of old video games, cartoons, and films within Generation Y. Above all is a desire for “vocation”, what author Marilyn Ferguson regards as a “direction more than a goal” that incorporates all aspects of life, including careers, relationships, and life experiences. What results is a period of exploration that goes in both outer directions - traveling around the world, moving away from or back to childhood homes – and inner ones, such as exploring alternative spirituality and studying philosophy. Finding that vocation may occupy most of the twentysomething’s attention during the crisis.
Living in the “Now”
One major benefit of such soul-searching is that, unlike those in midlife, twentysomethings have many years of life before them with which to enjoy the fruits of this exploration. There is a concern about using one’s time wisely and “living in the now”, and this urgency fuels much of the desperation of the Quarter Life Crisis. Twentysomethings do not want to wake up at 40 and find themselves in jobs they hate or in destructive marriages, with all of their best years behind them. In the film Garden State, Zach Braff’s twentysomething character asks “What do we do now?” Perhaps this is the ultimate worry: that the best years are neither ahead nor behind, but are happening right now.
Finding the best way to spend this moment is the central question at the heart of the Quarter Life Crisis. How long and how deep this crisis runs depends on how effectively and how soon the twentysomething can answer it.
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