The Quarter Life Crisis: Fact, Fiction, or Modern Invention?

Stop me if this sounds familiar: you are an Adult-in-Training who is about 2-5 yrs removed from college. You are in your mid-to-late twenties and may or may not be onto your second or third job. You are either completing or seriously contemplating grad school (especially in this economy). Life may be going okay overall, but you are not 100% happy with or are somewhat unsure about the way things are turning out career-wise, relationship-wise etc. You also find yourself occasionally freaking out a little about why you don't have it all together yet cos now you're an adult. Sound familiar?
Well, it appears you've got a bad case of Quarter-Life Crisis... or do you? This could just be another disorder that the pharmaceutical industry is telling you that you have because they've already got a pill that will cure you or at least alleviate your symptoms (plus give you some of those awesome side effects).

Where is this pressure coming from that has us stressing out about growing into our own skin at our own pace? Who set the standards of achievement and the timeline for the 20-something trying to make their way in the world?

If we flashback a few generations ago (think grandparents and older), by age 25 most people were married, owned a home, had children (on the way at least), and were in a steady job that they would likely occupy until retirement. To most of us residing in 2009, this is a totally foreign and some might even say scary notion. Society's milestones have radically shifted in the last 30-50 years, in a direction that has given modern young adults an extra five to ten years (read: by age 35) to get established. If we are trending toward sinking our teeth into careers, getting married, and starting families later in life...why are 25-year olds freaking out these days (yelling "quarter-life crisis!") when in the grand scheme of life, we literally just took the training wheels off yesterday?

We are all Adults-in-Training, 'training' being the operative word. Most of us are truly on our own for the first time in our lives and working our way towards our goals. We are just getting used to seeing our own name on every bill that appears in the mail box. We are signing leases and dreaming of owning our own property. We are dragging ourselves to our jobs, looking forward to one day living for our careers. We are dating, hoping to find that special person to spend our life with. In other words, everything we are doing right now is just practice for the future.

We must learn to crawl before we can walk. We must learn to walk before we can run. We must learn to run before we can fly. All of us must pass through these stages before we can truly take flight...but let us not forget that no two A-i-T's will pass through at these stages at the same time or at the same rate. To put things in perspective, I am two years older than Lebron James, but never in my life will I be as rich and famous as he is or amaze the world with my skill, and that's okay. Lebron James will never be a therapist and help people resolve problems on a personal level like I will once I finish grad school, and that's okay too.

There is a lot of pressure to succeed in today's fast paced world, but all the indicators of success seem to be external, superficial, and most of all, totally arbitrary. Who are we trying to keep pace with, or who should be we be keeping pace with other than ourselves? Society may set the tempo, but we can still decide how we are going to dance. I'm gonna go ahead and chalk up this quarter-life-crisis to fiction and modern invention. If our parents and grandparents weren't flipping out at age 25, then why should we?

So Adults-in-Training, let's chill out a little in this basketball game called life. We have three more quarters to go and the ball is in our collective hands...

Adults-in-Training, do you believe in the "quarter-life-crisis" or is it just a social construction or self-imposed illusion?

Peace,
A-i-T