Suffering from quarter-life crisis?

I thought I’d write a blog on my quarter-life crisis because it sounded kind of depressingly cool to suffer from a QLC. Yes, I’m shallow like that, writes Tasneem Nashrulla.

I thought I’d write a blog on my quarter-life crisis because it sounded kind of depressingly cool to suffer from a QLC. Yes, I’m shallow like that. I first heard the term being used by a college classmate who was three years older than us and spouted Quentin Tarantino dialogues while conversing (so he was going through a QLC).

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At the time, I thought he made up the phrase and was really impressed. Until a year later when I realised that everything he said had already been said by someone famous. Turns out, this quarter-life crisis is not just another 20-something fad like drinking wine and eating cheese together or watching foreign films that you half-understand and pretend to love. A cursory Google search revealed books, medical research and several other blogs devoted to this phenomenon that

I casually tossed around as fodder for my blog. Abby Wilner coined the phrase in 1997, who like all good ol’ 20-somethings, couldn’t figure out what to do with her life after she graduated.

It must have hit her pretty hard considering she co-authored two whole books on it —Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your 20s and Quarterlifer’s Companion.

There was also Lee Wellman who was blindsided and knocked down by an anxiety disorder one idle winter afternoon only
to realise it was driven by a quarter life crisis. But he did get back up and recovered well enough to write a book, My Quarter Life Crisis. I wonder what it was about?

Then there’s the official website —www.quarterlifecrisis.com which claims it’s a one-stop info shop for recent grads and beyond. I mean, seriously, what do they sell — money and alcohol?

Sample this blog post on Healthy Living — It’s a “sudden reality check where we overanalyse our current lifestyles in
comparison to the lifestyles of our peers. For others, it’s about doubt – always wondering if I’m making the right decisions.

Some of us are thrown adults expectations but are still treated like children, and some claim to go to sleep most nights overwhelmed, constantly settling for safety, and wishing on the lottery instead of getting out there and chasing all those big, bright dreams. Others are just trying to find the right balance between life, work and love.”

Here’s my take on it: “The QLC is suffered by one who can’t be sensible enough to face the adult life without self-introspection and self-doubt and is either too stupid or too pathetic to just suck it all up and get over oneself.. and also thinks of it as something that is depressingly cool and then goes on to write a blog about it.” Yeah, sounds just about right!

This is a (sort of) print version of the blog that appears on www.htblogs.com. Write to Tasneem at tasneem.nashrulla@
hindustantimes.com