Background
Thought that this topic will be useful to 20s people out
there.Recently it has been getting attention from counsellors and
psychologists and more research is being done on this rising
phenomenon. Basically Quarter life cisis is not mid life crisis.
And it is more prevalent in current times, interestingly comes in a
different time than previous decades because of the changes the
world seems to be going through in these times. It is now being
thought how it affects individuals when a crisis of such sort hits
them so early before their mid life crisis which is more recognised
and talked about.
Quarter life crisis refers to the culture shock which affects the
age group of people in their early to mid 20s who have left their
teen & school life years to enter the working world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis
[i]The quarter-life crisis is a term, coined circa November 1965 in
Toronto, by psychologist Elliott Jaques [citation needed], applied
to the period of life immediately following the major changes of
adolescence, usually ranging from the ages of 21 - 29. The term is
named by analogy with mid-life crisis.
Emotional aspects
Characteristics of this crisis are:
confusion of identity
insecurity regarding the near future
insecurity regarding present accomplishments
re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
disappointment with one's job
nostalgia for college life
tendency to hold stronger opinions
boredom with social interactions
financially-rooted stress
loneliness
These emotions and insecurities are not uncommon at this age, nor
at any age in adult life. In the context of the quarter-life
crisis, however, they occur shortly after a young person usually an
educated professional, in this context enters the "real world".
After the initial excitement of adult life and its responsibilities
wears off, some individuals find themselves in a world of career
stagnation and extreme insecurity.
As the emotional ups-and-downs of adolesence and college life
subside, many in the quarter-life crisis experience a "graying" of
emotion. While emotional interactions may be intense in a high
school or college environment where everyone is roughly the same
age and hormones are highly active these interactions become
subtler and more private in adult life.
Furthermore, a contributing factor to this crisis may be the
difficulty in adapting to a workplace environment. In college,
professors' expectations are clearly given and students receive
frequent feedback on their performance in their courses. By
contrast, in a workplace environment, a person may be, for some
time, completely unaware of a boss's displeasure with his
performance, or of his colleagues' dislike for his personality.
Office politics require interpersonal skills that are largely
unnecessary for success in an educational setting. Emerging adults
eventually learn these social skills, but this process sometimes
compared to learning another language is often highly
stressful.
[edit]
Financial and social aspects
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 [citation needed], 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 was the first generation to meet
this uncertain "New Economy" en masse.
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 40 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.
[edit]
Other theories
Erik H. Erikson, who proposed eight crises that humans face during
development, also proposed the existence of a life crisis occurring
at this age. In his developmental theory, he proposed that human
life is divided into eight stages, each with its own conflict that
humans must resolve. The conflict he associated with young
adulthood is the Intimacy vs. Isolation crisis. According to him,
after establishing a personal identity in adolescence, young adults
seek to form intense, usually romantic relationships with other
people.
The version of the "quarter-life crisis" proposed by Erikson, then,
is very different from the one that occurs in popular culture.
Indeed, the pop-culture version of the "quarter-life crisis"
contains more elements of the crisis Erickson associated with
adolescence, Identity vs. Role-confusion, giving credence to the
theory that late-20th century life, with its bizarre mix of extreme
comfort and insecurity, is then causing people to mature at a
slower rate.
[edit]
Popular culture
Jack Kerouac, in his description of the character Remi Bonc'ur in
On The Road, wrote:
When I found him in Mill City that morning he had fallen on the
beat and evil days that come to young guys in their middle
twenties.
In the novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, author
Douglas Coupland defines "mid-twenties breakdown" as
A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, often
caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured
environments, coupled with a realisation of one's essential
aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of
pharmaceutical usage.
