After school or tertiary education you have to figure out everything in the real world fast - choosing a career, finding a home, carving a social niche and managing money or the lack of it. But at the same time you have to figure yourself out.
Your 20s usually bring your first serious, independent, adult decisions, and exhilarating as this can be, it can also be daunting. It's actually a terrifying time. There are so many options today in every facet of life. I didn't know what I wanted to do after school, and ended up taking a degree in psychology just because a woman at a careers evening said it was very difficult and she didn't think I'd get through it.
I joined an HR department, working in statistics. But I had a sick feeling in my stomach every Sunday night. I felt lost. Should I stick it out? Change jobs? Change cities and lose out on a great man I'd met? In your 20s it's a crisis and you feel so alone.
In truth it's so common that Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner coined a term for it in their bestselling Quarterlife Crisis (Tarcher). The quest to define ourselves begins during childhood,' they write, 'but when 20-somethings enter the ‘real’ world the process can seem to start all over again.'
What makes it so difficult is that you have to go through it on your own, and during a time when many aspects of your life are already in turmoil. 'It is under these circumstances that the quarterlife crisis is truly an identity crisis,' say Robbins and Wilner.
The most important thing to remember is that you are not actually alone, people are still going through this turbulence - all areas of life, including career, family, relationships and spirituality, are constantly clamoring for attention.
Great Expectations
The turbulence is exacerbated for today's 20-somethings by the message of the media and society that the world is your oyster. Damian Barr, author of Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis (Hodder & Stoughton), blames the Internet and reality TV for our culture's exaltation of the 'micro-celebrity' and creation of unrealistic expectations. In a US poll, 81 % of 18- to 25-year-olds said getting rich was one of their most important goals, and 51 % said they wanted to be famous.
The relatively recent notion of being able to get rich and famous overnight, fed by the likes of You Tube and Idols, brings pressure to hurry up and be successful, and breeds impatience. We see people who are famous simply for being famous, such as Paris Hilton, who has a lot of money without having done anything. And we start to wonder what's taking us so long. If other people can do this, why can't we?
Then when you can't find a satisfying job, relationship or lifestyle, you feel disappointed and depressed. These are normal reactions. However, it's important not to let anyone or anything pressure you into making a hasty decision, as this decision is about your life - you are the one who will have to live with it.
Every fall is a realization of what you can and can't do, what you do and don't like, what you think and what you feel, and helps you understand who you are.
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