If you read Buzzfeed or anything aimed at millennials - you may have heard of the 'Quarter-Life Crisis'. Before the age of the millennials - life crises were aimed at the middle aged and those turning 30 - so is the quarter-life crisis really a thing or should those of us in our mid-twenties just shut up and get on with life? Was the quarter-life crisis really there all along?
I have to say, I'm strongly on the side of the quarter-life crisis being a thing. Your twenties are a strange time of adulthood - where you're only really just finding your feet. Out of uni and into the world of employment - your twenties are the slap in the face of reality that perhaps your dream of moving out of your parents and getting your dream job isn't as easy as you imagined.
Many of us had dreams of being in our ideal jobs by our mid-twenties but in reality - it just doesn't happen that way and life plans become a bit pointless because it's impossible to follow unrealistic targets. So when we're at the age where we thought we would be well on our career path - we're really only just finding our feet or still trying to get them through the door.
Add onto this, that in your twenties your peers begin doing very grown up things like getting married and having children while you're still single and couldn't even begin to imagine looking after a real life mini human-being when you can barely keep a house plant alive.
Soon your Facebook is filled with people getting engaged, married, buying houses, having children, having more children or travelling the world while you spend your weekends sighing at your empty bank account and watching YouTube (or is that just me?).
You find yourself desperate to get your shit together, much earlier than you ever imagined. The transition from getting pissed all the time and being carefree to having to pay rent and bills comes all too soon and like a frustrated toddler - it just isn't fair.
Already it feels like we have to have it all. We need to have the great place, the great boyfriend/girlfriend, the great job and great prospects. This seems to be the basis of all social questions and if you have no reply - well you're disappointing and boring.
Now maybe this state of mind is something that's always been there that our older peers never warned us about or maybe it depends on your circumstances if you get the quarter-life crisis at all. If everything is going to plan, you wouldn't really have much need for panic - or would you?
In this digital age of blogs, social media and more consumerism than ever - we really have no escape from being bombarded with what everyone else has. So is it any wonder we might feel insignificant or severely lagging. If you haven't found the one, the perfect job, managed to afford the bag of the season or risk debt on a monthly basis to at least fill your life with material possessions - you're not alone. There's a whole generation of us and if we're all honest with ourselves - this state of mind has probably always been there through the ages.
So as I dread my 25th birthday in May, knowing that with every year I am edging closer to 30, I can know that I'm not alone in feeling like I do and that I'm likely to face ongoing crises of life throughout the years and everything falls into place for different people at different times. And if it doesn't - well I can just have a well deserved breakdown.
Are you part of the quarter-life crisis? Are you older and have pearls of wisdom for the millennials? Let me know!
No comments:
Post a Comment