Coming of age takes longer than ever.
The quarter-life crisis is the crunch of existential, emotional, and pressing, pragmatic choices that we make—or which make us—in that decade or so after adolescence, before fully adult life begins.
Between our late teens and early thirties, we are coming of age. We’re figuring things out, like what we want to do and who we want to be, and who we want to do and be those things with.
In some times and places, there is no time for quarter-life crisis: there is a quick transition from childhood to adult responsibility. Due to a number of economic and cultural forces, this model of adulthood, with careers, home ownership, spouses, and children, takes longer than ever for many people to achieve, and for Generation Y, it’s more difficult than ever. For some, the resources needed to bring up children seem unattainable before one’s mid-thirties, if at all.
Gentlemen, are you in the throes of the quarter-life?
What are you most worried about? College loan debt? Employment? Marriage? Kids? Something else?
What do you need to achieve to call yourself a man?
Is manhood still inevitable for you, or can you hover in this stage forever?
Have you gotten through the quarter-life crisis?
How did you do it?
Did you redefine successful adulthood for yourself?
How has this affected your self-image as a man?
Are there benefits to having an extended quarter-life?
Tell us your stories of quarter-life crisis.
Email your submissions on the Quarter-Life Crisis theme to Justin Cascio, at [email protected], by Saturday, July 21 (note that this call has been extended) for consideration.
—Photo credit: Andres Rueda/Flickr
Mine started around age 23. I realized I hadn’t figured anything out, was overweight and unhappy with my job and long term relationship. I first quit my job, started a company with 3 friends. Started immersing myself in things that I enjoyed doing (it’s not all fun and games though, really hard work.) I broke up with the person I had been dating, I had thought about it for more than a year. I finally took the plunge and did it. It was awful for the first few weeks. All of the sudden I was living in my parents house,… Read more »
My quarterlife crisis started at the age of 25! I was 2 years into an engineering job and was tired of the position where I was…I had a sports car, money in my pocket, and a few women I was dating…living the good life. I then started a job making 6 figures in DC and thats when I realized that paper pushing and bullsh!t meetings where not my thing. I literally started to get sick from the dred of going into work, I hated my job, I in some ways hated my life. I complained to my friends every hour… Read more »