No Place to Hide

As you know the quarterlife crisis is due to the uncertainty that we face as teens, twentysomethings and thirty-year-olds. Uncertainty about our careers, the state of the world, relationships, paying the rent, our future, etc…

While paying the rent and student loans have a way of taking priority, much of our anxiety as quarterlifers stems from the changing times we live in.

Yes it's true! Despite what our parents and grandparents say...life is different today.

Now stay with me.

Did you know that in the year 1500 there were less than 500 million people in the world. If you were a quarterlifer back then you had little or no contact with the people outside your village and perhaps the neighboring village.

Now fast forward to the year 2006 where over 6 billion people inhabit the planet. (The World Health Organization reports that 400,000 people are born each day.)

Not only are there more people…A LOT MORE…but we are becoming increasingly interconnected. For example in 2000 a sixth of the planet was interconnected by the World Wide Web and that number is rising. With the development of wireless communication third world countries are now getting connected without having to lay down expensive cables or fiber optics.

So what does this have to do with your quarterlife crisis? A couple of things.

First, it is no longer possible to have a safe, small, compartmentalized life.

What’s that?

It’s what our grandparents created…for a time.

They lived in a United States that was predictable. They set it up that way. No one rocked the boat. They originated the suburbs where everyone had their own little square plot. Life was established. There was life at work, life at home and recreation with little connection between the three. Friday night at the bar was separate from Sunday morning at church. Dad went to work in the morning and came home at night...but no one talked about what that work was. Television shows like “Donna Reed” strived to show the perfect “put together” family. The problems of other countries and other people were not their problems. They attempted to create an island, an oasis, a life that was did not intrude on others or allow others to intrude on it.

Today it’s different. Big time. As quarterlifers we can’t even conceive of a life independent of others. There is no escaping the fact that we are becoming a global society. The problems in the Middle East become our problems. We know we are not islands. 9/11 was our wake up, but it continues today. For example yesterday an attack on a Saudi Arabia oil refinery caused the value of a barrel of oil to go up $2 in the US Stock Market. This price increase will cause the sticker price at the local gas station to climb. If it jumps like it did the Fall of 2005 the newspapers will once again be filled with SUV’s and full size pick-ups for sale, people will be taking the bus again, and families will be rescheduling their vacation time not to include the road trip this year. From our oil to our personal lives we are interconnected.

Second with the interconnection comes a bombardment of differing world views. Our parents and grandparents grew up with limited world views. That is not an attack on them. It’s just a fact of the times. Life was more black and white.

--Americans were good. Communists were bad.
--Christianity was right. Eastern religion was wrong.
--Corporate America was guaranteed security. Job hopping was foolish.

To be fair things did change in the 60s for our parents. Many of them actively sought out alternative views and ways of life. It was a hip and trendy thing to do. Yet today whether we are exploring them or not, whether they are “cool” or not, we are bombarded with differing views of the world.

As quarterlifers we do not live in the black and white, good and bad world that our parents and grandparents grew up in. We don’t have the luxury of having training wheels on as we head out into the real world.

With a single click of our mouse we are exposed to Jews, Catholics, Conservatives, Liberals, Environmentalist, Porn Stars, Priests, Asians, Artists, Architects, Athletes, Athiests, Christians, Hindus, Africans, Russians, War Scenes, Stock Market Numbers and on and on an on....

A single church in Vail, CO hosts six different religious groups each weekend. From a Jewish service on Saturday followed on Sunday by a Baptist service, Lutheran service, Presbyterian service, Episcopal service, and Catholic Service. Flip through your 200 cable channels and you’ll find someone speaking for or against every topic from politics, to education, to health. This smorgasbord of choices may be good long term (the jury is still out) but short term it leads to more confusion. It’s one more thing that isn’t established.

Because we are exposed to more than one religion, political view, philosophy, career, lifestyle, etc… From the beginning we are choosing our life’s path instead of following one laid down for us. This is much different than the life most of our parents and grandparents led. We are discovering ourselves in ways they didn't begin to until later in their lives.

The problem we have as quarterlifers is that we put pressure upon ourselves to have it all figured out from the beginning. It's not possible. In fact the more answers to our questions we discover will just unearth more questions. That's the journey of life.

Remember…as I’ve interviewed quarterlifers from around the world I have yet to meet anyone who has it all figured out. It’s okay not to have all the answers…no ones does. We live in a new world. One in which no one and I mean no one has ventured before. There are no rules for how it should be, look or feel. We are discovering them as we go. What we can do is share our stories. When we realize we are not alone and that others are going through similar uncertainity we gain confidence and strength.

What is your story? Are you experiencing a quarterlife crisis? Have you found solutions that work for you? Email me and let me know. jason@uploadexperience.com