Quarter-Life Crisis

I found an article on abcnews.com about what's known as a "Quarter-life crisis". It definitely shows the wide range of emotions people in their twenties go through. More-so now than in decades past. In the past, it took a bachelors degree to be relatively well off in your life. It meant a good, decent to well paying job and stability for you and your family. Now, a bachelors degree is the high school diploma of those days gone by. If you don't have a degree, you won't even get your foot in the door, much less step inside. But, why that is is a story for another place and time.

Basically, a quarter-life crisis is a mid-mid-life crisis. Halfway between your birth and your supposed mid-life crisis in your forties or fifties. Urbandictionary.com puts it like this:

"Usually occurs sometime in your twenties, a few years out of school and still feel as though you're waiting for you're life to begin. For most people it will be arround twenty five years of age (give or take a year or two) as this tends to be when you're way of thinking is starting to change beyond that of a high school or college student."

You'll have to excuse the poor grammar and spelling in that quote. But, why should we expect to have a degree, career AND family by the time we're thirty? Life expectancy is nearing EIGHTY! The average age to get married is now 27. The average American will have 8 jobs by the time they're 32. Hell, the average age for having your first child is around 25. In 1970 it was 21.  Give yourself time. The traditional family values of yester-year aren't necessarily adhered to near as much as the used to be. So, why must the expectations from that time of a persons accomplishments based on their age still be so important? It would be like going to the moon in 2015 while using 1969 technology. It just doesn't make sense NOT to change with time.

If you think you're having a quarter-life crisis, just remember that you're probably only through about one-third of your life. You still have a lot of time left based on the average. Who knows, you may live to be 100. Or 150! Medical technology is improving by leaps and bounds. There's no reason to expect a 25 year old, recently graduated person to have their career set and a family going. But, if you're still feeling a bit crisisified, check out quarterlifecrisis.com. It's a site that has thousands of people and millions of visitors. People on the site post all kinds of things about their lives as well as advice for people in the midst of their own quarter-life crisis.