While the Generation-X talks much about mid-life crisis, Generation-Y seems to face a similiar phenomenon in the form of quarterlife crisis.  Gen-Y seems to want everything faster and therefore crisis happens sooner too, isn’t that true?  So what’s the difference between the two?

Here are the definition from Wikipedia:

• Midlife crisis is a term coined in 1965 by Elliott Jaques and used in Western societies to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is felt by some individuals in the “middle years” or middle age of life, as a result of sensing the passing of their own youth and the imminence of their old age. Sometimes, a crisis can be triggered by transitions experienced in these years, such as extramarital affairs, andropause or menopause, the death of parents or other causes of grief, unemployment or underemployment, realizing that a job or career is hated but not knowing how else to earn an equivalent living, or children leaving home. The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day-to-day life or situation, such as in career, work-life balance, marriage, romantic relationships, big-ticket expenditures, or physical appearance.
• Quarterlife crisis is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties. The term is named by analogy with mid-life crisis.

In other words, there’s really no difference between the 2.  The key measure and cause to emotions stirring here is lifestyle, career, work-life, relationships, networth and appearance.  To cut it short, it’s how a person measure his or her own self achievements against expectations.  If those definitions are true, then there’s a silver lining here - anyone will only go through midlife crisis or quarterlife crisis, not both.  The “crisis will hit” once, and depending on when it happens you’ll just label it accordingly!

So why does these happen?  Why did Midlife Crisis transformed into Quarterlife Crisis?

• Reality hits earlier - Due to “Formal Education” and “Knowledge Economy”, there’s higher expectations among graduates to achieve sooner rather than later.  I’m not sure if it’s just my observation or would anyone be able to provide some data for this, but my view would be that graduates generally have a higher chance of getting into quarterlife crisis while those who does not obtain tiertary education is more likely to only face mid-life crisis.  This has to do with the circle of friends from the same university adding on to peer pressure.  To put it simply, parents nowadays convince the children to study hard by saying “you got to get good grades to become a high achiever some day”, so the higher the grades the faster quarterlife crisis arrive when reality hits.
• News travels faster - How often do you get to meet up with your schoolmates in the past (i.e: 1950s)?  I guess not that often especially if you’re not brought up in the same city throughout your life.  So it’s likely only during annual reunion (which not everybody attends).  You’re unlikely to know much about your friend’s progress and how well they have done until years later (late thirties), that’s when comparison starts and those who felt they have underachieved goes into midlife crisis.  Today, university mates meets up in starbucks (or anywhere else for that matter) so frequently that they could exchange notes about who’s doing what.  Furthermore, so much news about your friend’s life could be found on social network.  It’s likely that you’ll get the news within 1 month if your friend got promoted, updated the status and posted some pictures of celebrations.  Thus, comparisons started earlier (late 20s).
• More stories to compare against - There are more successful young entrepreneurs around and many stories published about these people.  Many people forgot about the millions who fail for the one to succeeded.  While “success stories” in the past are about those who made it in their 40s, the stories today focused much on those who achieved in the 20s.  Once again, comparison and society expectations.
• Widening gap in wealth - While the gap between the rich and poor is the society may not be that huge in the past, it is not too obvious.  However, as the generation grows, it’s just common economics that the rich becomes richer for the money they get to reinvest and grow while the poor becomes poorer (taking into consideration time value of money).  When these happens, those who came from more comfortable well to do families may have family backing for better education or even capital to start their own business while those who are not as lucky may just need to first work the hard way up as employees.  Thus the gap creates comparison too!  Yes, I agree that there are the rich to bankrupts and poor to strike it rich but these are small numbers.
• Career is a big word - “Education” is the past focuses on “becoming a useful person”.  Before formal education exists, the informal education are often religious in nature and it’s all about becoming a better person.  However, today’s education focuses on “building your career”.  Universities nowadays even include modules on career development as part of its curriculum.  Because of the big word “career”, graduates tend to be harder on themselves and can’t wait to see their results.
• Wedding becoming more complex - Getting married in the past used to be a simple ceremony (some even have arranged marriage) where there’s more for parents to worry about than for the one getting married.  Times have changed, there are now expectations on purchasing a house, stable income, diamond ring … etc (and the list goes on) when the thought of wedding comes to mind.  Thus, people are “not ready to get married” until a later date.
• More inventions and gadgets - When there’s more supply, the demand will somehow follow.  This is especially true for lifestyle and “status” items.  Thus with the frequent introduction of new innovation and gadgets today, the cost of living (or should I say the cost of lifestyle) increases too!  With that, many perceive that they’re unable to live the lifestyle they desire to and feel depressed about it.

Looking at the above, whether mid-life or quarterlife crisis; it looks very much like a state of mind.  It’s about our desires and expectations compared to our actual ability to meet them.  What’s more important is to be able to adjust our own expectations and desires if it does not look realistic from the ability viewpoint and accept that fact that the world isn’t created equal.

A sense of satisfaction and feeling contented will conquer the quarterlife crisis, don’t you think so?  Easier said than done though.

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Tags: career, development, Generation Y, generationx, lifestyle, midlife crisis, quarterlife crisis

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Achieving Dreams, Culture, Generation Y, Youth Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.