You probably thought a midlife crisis was something your parents go through- like buying a motorbike or getting some obscene tattoo/ haircut, prompted by the realization that their life is more than halfway over. But what if someone told you at age 20, that you were just 5 years away from your very own midlife crisis? Lucky chaps. My post looks at the new ‘Quarter life crisis’ that seems to be hitting our generation like a train.
So why are so many young people entering a premature crisis at the age of 25? An interesting article by The Daily Mail highlighted this issue, saying that “Today’s young adults often struggle with the multitude of options available, driving them to feel anxiety, depression and a sense of being trapped or ‘locked into’ a marriage or a job that doesn’t feel right.” So is it the expectation of how we should be living, prompting this early midlife crisis?
Expectation. It’s a frightening word, isn’t it? We all have expectations about how our lives will be/ how they would have been at the age of 25; a degree, full time job, a car, a stable relationship and maybe a house. And whilst many young adults strive towards, what I like to call as, life’s holy grail (a job, partner and fulfillment,) many are simply not finding themselves in this position. The fact is, whilst young people are successfully completing their degrees (which they believe to be their key to a full time job), many are struggling to find them and end up settling with an unfulfilling post, largely unrelated to their degree.
But whilst many are trying to fulfill these job/ relationship expectations, many are showing a desperate attempt to resist them by, for example, staying single for longer, playing the field, rather than committing. Unlike my grand parents who met in Aberystwyth University in the 1950s and married shortly afterwards, many are choosing to stay single and pursue their careers before settling down. And how do they satisfy their loneliness? Casual hook ups which are easily accessible, thanks to social networking. Many argue that they just do not have the time for little more than a Tinder hook up. But has our generation become so inward looking and career driven that they are leaving little or no time to actually get to know someone.
There seems to be this idea that “relationships can wait until later” and that there will be plenty of time for the serious stuff once careers are fully established. But some research seems to suggest that a string of casual hook ups can be more damaging than liberating to the way we conduct ourselves in later relationships, according to an article on psychologytoday.com. If we become more cynical about sex and relationships, then will we find it more difficult to break the habit and form fully functional relationships when we finally “feel ready”?
Furthermore this liberating choice to stay single on the pursuit of success can be conflicting with what’s going on in our friend’s relationships. This might cause us to feel pressured about finding a life time partner. Having been invited to 7 weddings within a 2 year period, my own 23 year old sister has begun showing signs of this quarter life crisis. Cry. One minute you graduate and suddenly people are settling down and tying the knot, making you wonder if you’re one step behind everyone else.
The 2005 movie ‘The Last Kiss,’ with the tagline “You’re never too young for a midlife crisis,” perfectly captures the essence of what it feels like to have demands thrust upon you in your 20s and the bizarre ways in which we try to deal with these pressures. Zach Braff plays an unmarried twenty something year old who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant with their [unplanned] first child. Bombarded by friends in different romantic situations: getting married, failing relationships, having children, staying single, Braff feels trapped in a situation he didn’t plan. In his attempt to regain control of his life, he finds himself having an affair with a college student before realizing that he might have lost the love of his life.
We never find out if the mother of his child forgives him, but what we can take from the film is that this urge to resist demand and expectation can lead to us making selfish choices that we may come to regret. Perhaps if we stop chasing material possessions/ careers for a moment and accept what life throws at us (in the form of potential partners and exciting life opportunities) we can experience real satisfaction in life and avoid the quarter life crisis.
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