Quarter-life crisis

In four days time, I'll be bidding adios to being 23.

The past year has been a roller coaster ride for me. Haven't been through so many ups and downs in 365 days for as long as my memory can serve me. Had a drastic change in my career, death scares of two of my grandparents, meeting someone who mattered very much as a mentor n friend and then screwing things up after having a break down due to stress. Not forgetting passing up on opportunities that on hindsight I should have taken up.

With all these commotion happening in my life, I was telling some friends over the weekend that I'm definitely not looking forward to add another digit to my age as it'll only mean that I'm one step closer to meeting my quarter-life crisis. After entering adult life and coming to terms with its responsibilities, I somehow found myself stuck in a world of career stagnation and extreme insecurity.

Read somewhere online that a primary cause of the stress associated with the "quarter-life crisis" is financial in nature. Real wages for most people have been dropping since the 1970s and most professions have become highly competitive. Positions of relative security – such as tenured positions at universities and "partner" status at law firms – have dwindled in number. This, combined with excessive downsizing, means that many people will never experience occupational security in their lives, and this is doubly unlikely in young adulthood. Generation X that I belong to unfortunately is the first generation to meet with this uncertain "New Economy" en masse.

Property has never been less affordable--especially in the cities, where we must go to compete for jobs. This contributes to a sense of rootlessness. In turn, this impacts on relationships with friends and potential partners--not that most twentysomethings have time for sex.

The era when a professional career meant a life of occupational security – thus allowing an individual to proceed to establish an "inner life" – is coming to a crashing end. Financial professionals are often expected to spend at least 80 hours per week in the office, and people in the legal, medical, educational, and managerial professions may average more than 60. In most cases, these long hours are de facto involuntary, reflecting economic and social insecurity. While these ills plague adults at all ages, their worst victims are ambitious, unestablished young adults.

In The Cheating Culture, David Callahan illustrates that these ills of excessive competition and insecurity do not always end once one becomes established – by being awarded tenure or "partner" status – and therefore the "quarter-life crisis" may actually extend beyond young adulthood. Some measure of financial security – which usually requires occupational security – is necessary for psychological development. Some have theorized that insecurity in the "New Economy" will place many in a state of, effectively, perpetual adolescence, and that the rampant and competitive consumerism of the 1990s and 2000s indicates that this is already taking place.

Having said all that, I guess it's not all doom and gloom. A friend said in return, most people don't reach 100 anyway, so I have nothing to fret as I've perhaps been through this dark patch in my life already and things will only look up from here.

On a separate note, my mind starts to wonder whether I'll prefer dying young or to live a ripe long life and experience lots of crisis like mid-life, old age etc. ... oh well... No one can have the best of all worlds...