Quarter-life
Three posts in one day? Wot?
I felt, though, that this article could not be ignored, and that I had to tell my LJ flit ALL ABOUT IT, you guys.
Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis
The article touched on so many of the negative feelings swirling in my head like iridescent cauliflower soup.
Some gems from the article:
Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education.
Oh god the title of Dr. Scheer's book. I didn't realize until about 11 months after graduating college that it is a HUGE rip-off.
A 27-year-old freelance graphic designer with a graduate degree who is struggling to find work, Prescott says “You could always say the whole premise of education is that if you study, get good grades, acquire skills, you will have more options in a ‘career and life’ point of view. If you get a degree, you don’t have to work in a factory or have to work in a farm. That’s proving to be a huge lie, because you have people coming out of school and there are just no jobs, especially in ‘middle-class’ fields.” The dissonance between a twentysomething’s pre-career expectations and the dissatisfaction they feel as part of the working world can be hugely defeating...
I fell for this lie so hard. This is a topic that crashing_angel and I discuss often. They lied. "They" assured me that I'm smart, and I'll go to college, and I'll be okay. They need to stop that. It's not about smarts and college, it's about networking and interning. A college degree really is just a piece of fancy paper to hang on the wall (which is why mine is stuck far back in my closet.
“Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work..."
I really like when older people scoff at the notion that college is the "best years of your life." Please, please don't let it have been. I'm really afraid it was, though, as I had so little responsibility and so little expected of me. That said, college really wasn't wonderful.
In 1973, the average age for women to get married was 23, and for men, 25. By 2003, the average age for both rose about five years, a significant change that reflects both marriage-free cohabitation and purposefully delaying serious commitment. It also means that twentysomethings are increasingly going it alone in their financial lives, where they would historically be building assets and houses and portfolios alongside their partner.
It's great having roommates, it just makes life so much cheaper. But what happens when you have to move for career reasons, or you want to buy a house. You can't make the same big life decisions with a roommate that you can with a partner (husband). You are supposed to go with your spouse when a new job or job relocation forces them to move several cities away. I can't expect my roommates to do that, and I can't do that for my roommates. That means starting over on your own in a new city.
The directionlessness and resulting immobility is made worse when twentysomethings going through the Crisis compare themselves to their peers, past and present, further convincing someone in the throes of it that they’re not only alone, but the worst kind of failure.
...
“All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.”
Ding! Another proverbial direct hit to the nailhead. I graduated top in my class, surrounded by people comforting themselves with "big deal, I'm still going to be more successful than her." It seems like people either had big expectations of me, or they were biting and bitter behind my back (and sometimes to my face) about my academic success. I didn't ask to be top of my class, it just sort of happened by doing what I do best.
And now that I'm grown up and have nothing to show for it with a part-time (!) job, no husband, and the same oafish looks and sense of style that I had back then, I can't help but wonder how many of those people pat themselves on the back for overcoming that smart kid who thought she was hot shit (which, I didn't. I never tried to act better than anybody. I didn't know I was top of my class until a few months before graduation). It happened again in college.
I know I certainly compare myself to these people that I knew in high school and college. Man they sure showed me. Serves her right for having some academic talent!
My niceness and general intelligence led me to lead a life without effort. Everything I've done well has been without hardly an ounce of sweat on my part. Those things I don't do well, I fail miserably at, and those things, I've discovered, seem to be the most important.
“There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the fuck up."
This is probably what most adults wish to tell us. It's what my own brain is telling me. I'm trying not to allow these fears to become roadblocks. I suppose I just wanted to share this with you. How much I fear the typical, yet here are my anxieties classified into a generation-wide malaise.
[keyboardtar]
I felt, though, that this article could not be ignored, and that I had to tell my LJ flit ALL ABOUT IT, you guys.
Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis
The article touched on so many of the negative feelings swirling in my head like iridescent cauliflower soup.
Some gems from the article:
Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education.
Oh god the title of Dr. Scheer's book. I didn't realize until about 11 months after graduating college that it is a HUGE rip-off.
A 27-year-old freelance graphic designer with a graduate degree who is struggling to find work, Prescott says “You could always say the whole premise of education is that if you study, get good grades, acquire skills, you will have more options in a ‘career and life’ point of view. If you get a degree, you don’t have to work in a factory or have to work in a farm. That’s proving to be a huge lie, because you have people coming out of school and there are just no jobs, especially in ‘middle-class’ fields.” The dissonance between a twentysomething’s pre-career expectations and the dissatisfaction they feel as part of the working world can be hugely defeating...
I fell for this lie so hard. This is a topic that crashing_angel and I discuss often. They lied. "They" assured me that I'm smart, and I'll go to college, and I'll be okay. They need to stop that. It's not about smarts and college, it's about networking and interning. A college degree really is just a piece of fancy paper to hang on the wall (which is why mine is stuck far back in my closet.
“Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work..."
I really like when older people scoff at the notion that college is the "best years of your life." Please, please don't let it have been. I'm really afraid it was, though, as I had so little responsibility and so little expected of me. That said, college really wasn't wonderful.
In 1973, the average age for women to get married was 23, and for men, 25. By 2003, the average age for both rose about five years, a significant change that reflects both marriage-free cohabitation and purposefully delaying serious commitment. It also means that twentysomethings are increasingly going it alone in their financial lives, where they would historically be building assets and houses and portfolios alongside their partner.
It's great having roommates, it just makes life so much cheaper. But what happens when you have to move for career reasons, or you want to buy a house. You can't make the same big life decisions with a roommate that you can with a partner (husband). You are supposed to go with your spouse when a new job or job relocation forces them to move several cities away. I can't expect my roommates to do that, and I can't do that for my roommates. That means starting over on your own in a new city.
The directionlessness and resulting immobility is made worse when twentysomethings going through the Crisis compare themselves to their peers, past and present, further convincing someone in the throes of it that they’re not only alone, but the worst kind of failure.
...
“All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.”
Ding! Another proverbial direct hit to the nailhead. I graduated top in my class, surrounded by people comforting themselves with "big deal, I'm still going to be more successful than her." It seems like people either had big expectations of me, or they were biting and bitter behind my back (and sometimes to my face) about my academic success. I didn't ask to be top of my class, it just sort of happened by doing what I do best.
And now that I'm grown up and have nothing to show for it with a part-time (!) job, no husband, and the same oafish looks and sense of style that I had back then, I can't help but wonder how many of those people pat themselves on the back for overcoming that smart kid who thought she was hot shit (which, I didn't. I never tried to act better than anybody. I didn't know I was top of my class until a few months before graduation). It happened again in college.
I know I certainly compare myself to these people that I knew in high school and college. Man they sure showed me. Serves her right for having some academic talent!
My niceness and general intelligence led me to lead a life without effort. Everything I've done well has been without hardly an ounce of sweat on my part. Those things I don't do well, I fail miserably at, and those things, I've discovered, seem to be the most important.
“There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the fuck up."
This is probably what most adults wish to tell us. It's what my own brain is telling me. I'm trying not to allow these fears to become roadblocks. I suppose I just wanted to share this with you. How much I fear the typical, yet here are my anxieties classified into a generation-wide malaise.
[keyboardtar]