The 20-Something Dilemma
You wake up with a jolt and try to be aware of your surroundings. The sun has barely made a mark on the horizon, and you realize that it is another day for work. You savor the last moments of your sleep, interrupted by the phone alarm, by clinging to your blanket and pillows. Soon you get up and try to smell the coffee, but then realize that there is no coffee in your twenty-something apartment.
Welcome to yet another day in the life of a yuppie. This is where adulthood starts to pound on your door, but you try to keep it out for just a little longer because you’re not quite ready for it. Then you realize that yes, you are an adult—a young one at that—and should get used to taxes and work routines.
The first dilemma of the day is whether you will eat breakfast at home or in the office. The answer usually depends on a few more questions: What time is it? Is anything available here? What do I want to eat? Then you decide to just eat breakfast in the office, since you have two more housemates who will be using the bathroom, and you cannot be late. If only answering the other questions running in your head is that easy.
You ask questions like, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” “Where will this job take me?” and “Whatever happened to my childhood dreams?” You ask them to your peers, but even they cannot give you answers, since they’re asking these questions, too.
Welcome to a scary phase in your life, where you finally comprehend the impact every decision you make could do to your future. Then you think that you must live in the present, and you try and do that. The only thing you want to happen in your very near future is tonight’s gimmick. Still, at the back of your head, a very uncertain picture presents itself.
You commute on your way to the office, and between trying to find a space where you can fit in the crowded train and wondering when you can finally buy a car, conflicting philosophies start to run through your head, and right now you just can’t decide on which ones you will adopt. You focus on staying on your feet and avoiding the passenger next to you and his halitosis.
Images of your fun, carefree university life flash in your head. You miss the comforts of college, that time when you first had a taste of drunken, class-skipping, cramming freedom—minus the responsibilities of adulthood. Now your freedom takes a new shape and you try your best to handle it. It just takes a little getting used to, others tell you. I don’t want to get used to this drudgery, you think to yourself.
Welcome to the twenty-something dilemma, a.k.a. the quarter-life crisis. Welcome to your initiation to adult life. From now on you will be responsible for all the choices you make. Intellectualizing things becomes a more frequent habit as you walk the path between where you are and where you want to go, between who you are and who you want to be. Welcome to yet another search for yourself. Be careful not to drown in too much emo pondering, though; you have a gimmick in the very near future.