- Image via Wikipedia
Apparently Gen Y has a crisis on its hands–laughably called the Quarter Life Crisis (I talked a little about this in “Rockstars and Millionaires”). I’ll defer to the linked wikipedia pages for an explanation of the Quarter Life Crisis. Take a quick look at it. The question I’d like to answer is, is it a legitimate crisis? does it exist?
I’ll give both these questions a definitive ‘Yes.’
The Quarter Life crisis is essentially the common existential dilemma humans deal with (“what am I doing here?”) exacerbated by hyper-competitiveness and very high expectations (as well as the economic climate), which has some nasty side effects. To boil it down: we, Gen Y, really thought we were going to have it all–money, a job we love that will help save the world, everything. We were bred by the culture to think this, particularly those of us that worked hard to do things “right.” (It’s a harsh reality to later realize you may have worked hard at doing the wrong things….)
I suppose my Quarter Life Crisis started when I was in high school. But, I was able to avoid it by focusing on getting into a good school. Once I’d done that, there was no escaping. The Crisis came to a crescendo when I was a freshman at MIT, “What the HECK am I supposed to be doing here?”
It was brutal, but I won. And while that is a longer story, being the assertive man that I am, I will go ahead and tell you the Cure for the Quarter Life crisis.
The key to breaking the Quarter Life crisis is a single insight: the connection between great expectations and being non-committal. After all, if you don’t ever make any real decisions, how can you make the wrong decision? And how can you shut the door to satisfaction, passion, and success if you never do something that would cause it to shut?
This trap is what fuels the Quarter Life Crisis. And with that, the cure is quite simple:
Forget the Illusion of Genius and the expectation of instant success. Accept the fact that going back to school won’t solve your problem. Commit to something. Be relentless. Learn. Iterate. Your passion will become clearer. And quite quickly, you’ll notice that you’ve developed a strong sense of purpose.
Enough assertions from me for today. You’ll have to forgive me. I just got tired of hearing about how my generation is lost. While some of us may be for now, I’m confident we’ll grow into ourselves, and will become the most purposeful generation. I don’t think we’ll have a choice.
-Kevin
10.11.2010
