Quarter-life Crisis

(… with inputs from an e-mail I received …)


How often have we heard about mid-life crisis in hushed tones?


To think of such crisis from the other-end of the tube (to which I am closer) … let’s call it the quarter-life crisis … the characteristics or rather the symptoms (if I can take the liberty to call it so) ... are identical !!



So life does actually come a full circle … even when crisis is concerned …

Think about it …

It is when we

- stop following the herd

- start realizing that there are many things about ourself that we didn't know and may not like

- start feeling insecure and wonder where we will be in a year or two (but then get scared because we barely know where we are now ! )

- start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that we thought we were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people we have ever met, and the people we have lost touch with are some of the most important ones (What we don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as us)

- look at our job... and realize that it is not even close to what we thought we would be doing

- Or maybe we are looking for a job and feel scared realizing that we are going to have to start at the bottom of the huge ladder whose end seems to be light years away

- our opinions have gotten stronger

- have become too judgmental (That’s probably ‘coz we realize that we have certain boundaries in our lives and are constantly adding things to our ACCEPTABLE / UNACCEPTABLE list &  switching between SECURE / INSECURE phases)

- laugh and cry with the greatest force of our lives

- feel alone and scared and confused. (Suddenly, change is the enemy and wetry and cling on to the past with our dear lives, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay put or move forward).

- Get our hearts broken and wonder how someone we loved could hurt us so

- Or lie in bed and wonder why we can't meet a single decent enough person that we would want to know better

- Or maybe we love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why we're doing this because we know that we aren't bad

- want to settle down for good because now all of a sudden that becomes top priority

- getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic (we begin to think that a companion for life – in the true sense of the word - is better than too many birds in the bush or even someone who has/is being thrust upon us)

- go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk to friends on the same topics because we cannot seem to make a decision. We worry about loans, money, the future and give a serious thought to our life in the present tense

- think about making a life for ourselves... and while winning the race would be great, right now we'd just like to (at least) start being a contender! (for the people looking from the other end of the tube … this should essentially mean to think about doing the stuff you always dreamt of but never had the guts to jump into … you’re probably at the finals laps of the race and think more about getting to a neat finish … if not anything else)

What both ends of the tube may not realize is that every one reading this (assuming that they are at least teenagers) relates to it.

Life does come a full circle … though, by the time our life turns around to touch the point from which we initially started … we, unfortunately, forget that it was once there … and actually did exist in the first place. The past is blurred by taboo … and the entire idea of generation gap sets in …


The GAP though is in our minds and not between generations.