Quarterlife crisis...

Just the other day, I was discussing with my roommate about what we termed as 'quarter-life' crisis. It is the void which many 25-something guys experience these days. Though laughable, it is nevertheless true and can be seen in many youngsters. It is markedly different from the more common midlife crisis.

The average 25 year old in the Indian software/tech industry earns a handsome salary enough to enable him to lead a comfortable lifestyle.
You would surely expect such a candidate who has achieved so much so fast to be leading a blissful existence. But I am willing to bet that the majority of these suffer from largescale disenchantment with what they are doing and are a highly discontented lot.

So what is their need that they are not able to fulfill ? The average period for which a guy works in a given company is not more than 2 years in the software industry. Attrition is rampant. Is the reason the easy availibility of jobs? I would say this is the facilitator and not the cause. Is it the lure of better pay? Well, during the initial years it is the primary concern but not later on. Most of the people dont find satisfaction in their job after sometime. They want something more in their life, something extra, which they are unable to find in their present job. Everyone, I believe needs some kind of long-term aim and satisfaction in trying to achieve that. They need something to look forward to in their lives when they wake up in their bed in the morning and they depend upon their career to provide that. In most cases, being part of the rat-race provides the diversion that a person needs. It is a 'comfort pillow' that he or she hugs on to make life meaningful. So today it is that deadline that one has to meet, tomorrow it is the account that one has to capture. Then it is a promotion, the appraisal, the raise, the switch to another company/job and the rat-race goes on. The rat-race thus has a role to play. It serves a purpose without which your career and by extension your life may not carry much meaning to you.

It is only at some stage in your life, when you get tired and stop and ponder that you realise that you have always been running after short-term goals and in the long-term it all sums up to nothing. That my friend, is what I believe they call the mid-life crisis. At this point, after much introspection and perhaps after effecting some changes, the individual moves on - perhaps unwilling to accept that the rat-race is a necessary evil and he has not eliminated it but only modified it.

Coming back to how I began my point, this has kind of shifted in the time-frame and is seen pretty early in the career. It is perhaps coz of the fast pace at which life rolls on. Today, a youngster is pretty-self sufficient by the time he reaches 25 or 16 years of age. He manages to meet all the 'lower needs' in Maslow's heirarchy chiefly the physiological and safety needs. Earlier this would have taken some years to achieve. Everything is fast-track today and so is the crisis. Give it a thought.

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This is a reproduction of a comment I had added to a friend's blog where she had talked about the 'rat race'.
http://indialostandfound.blogspot.com/2005/04/trouble-with-rat-race-is-that-even-if.html