Conquering Quarterlife Crisis: One Blog at a Time

Yesterday, I blogged about a book on the topic of quarterlife crisis that I have read recently. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Molly Hoyne, Executive Director of Stratejoy, Inc.

Stratejoy is a site dedicated to helping 20 & 30 something women define success on their own terms and lead an authentically joyous life.

Here's quoting a few parts from Molly's email to me:

Stratejoy is thrilled to introduce four amazing women – Robyn, Kendra, Andrea & Marisa – who will be blogging about their Quarterlife Crisis starting Monday, July 13, 2009. They are allowing the world to be part of their journey as they tackle unemployment, big moves, soul sucking jobs, relationships, finding joy, staying true and all the other life-changing experiences that go along with being a Quarter Lifer.

These gutsy girls are helping challenge the stigma that this “crisis” is considered a failure and that somehow they should have avoided it. They’re not blaming anyone; they’re simply admitting they don’t have it “figured out” at the time in their lives when they thought they would. Through their weekly posts, these four women from across the country – DC, New York, Chicago, and Portland – will encourage you to think about your life, to challenge expectations and to carve our your own definition of success.

I have spent some time browsing Stratejoy and found that it has some useful resources and insights. Do make a visit.

Read: Who Cares What You're Supposed to Do?

Source: Amazon.com

This is a book that I would recommend women who are in their twenties and early thirties to have a read. In today's world, women have the privilege to have more options opened to them as compared to many decades ago. Strangely, having more options may create unknown pressures and doubts because there is possibly no exact road-map for women today. Furthermore, many of the societal expectations from many decades ago continue to prevail.

There are expectations that seem to suggest that women of that age are supposed to:
- have a fabulous career
- be financially independent
- be married with children
- have your own home
- enjoy a busy social life
- have a great body
- do it all right

Such expectations can unknowingly create pressure, doubts and feelings of guilt for those who felt that they cannot meet up to the expectations. What I find useful about this book is that it explores how one can put the pressures and expectations into perspective.

In addition, I find that it gave some useful strategy on how to steer away from self-doubt so that one could be in a better position to figure out what one would really want of one's life, rather than let the society dictate how one should live one's life.

The authors proposed the following four steps to resolving self-doubt:
1. Recognise and name the problem.
2. Understand and challenge the expectation.
3. Connect to what you value and believe.
4. Seek allies against self-doubt.

Essentially, Who Cares What You're Supposed to Do? Breaking the Rules to Get What You Want in Love, Life and Work is a book that explores the issues that women who are experiencing quarter-life crisis are likely to face.

While I find the case-examples a little hard to follow at times as they are scattered over various chapters of the book, these examples did help to illustrate many of the issues that are commonly faced by women in their quarter-life. I find it an insightful read as I admittedly experience issues related to quarterlife-crisis from time-to-time.

I also like the fact that this book was written by a psychologist. That seemed to make the writing style fairly appealing to yours truly who likes reading non-fiction books related to social science issues.

I took about a slightly more than a week to finish reading it. I look forward to overcoming some of my self-doubts and claiming the power to define my life on my own terms. May you too.

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Online ites on Quarterlife crisis:
http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com
http://www.stratejoy.com

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Title: Who cares what you're supposed to do? : breaking the rules to get what you want in love, life, and work
Author: Dickerson, Victoria C., with Fine, Carla.
Publisher New York : Berkley Publishing Group, 2004.

Available for loan from the National Library Board Singapore. Call Number: English 158.08422 DIC

QLC

Thanks to taking some time away from blogging, I have managed to find a bit more time to read. Last Saturday, a book caught my notice when I was at the library. I borrowed it and found myself reading it.

The title: Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties, authored by: Alexandra Robbins, Abby Wilner.

If you are fast enough, QLC, the acronymn of the title of this post refers to Quarter-life Crisis. If this terminology is new to you, Wikipedia has a page about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis.

As I read the book, I wonder if I might have been going through some kind of quarter-life crisis to some extent? I wonder if those periods of intense questioning and that I have been going through were symptoms of QLC?

Not all that the book says apply to me. I doubt that all that the book says would be fully relevant contextually to people living in this part of the world that I am living in because of the cultural and environmental differences. Out of curiosity, I wonder how QLC would be experienced differently in this part of the world?

While not all in the book apply to my situation, it seems to be comforting and at least normalising, to find that those questions in my mind could be simply normal to this phase of life that I am in. And if it helps to share with the folks who might be going through QLC unknowingly, here is a post to put a name to their experiences and to attempt to normalise it.

By the way, this page gives some idea about how to deal with QLC:
http://www.handbag.com/relationships/yourlife/haveitallpressure/

Pleasant reading.

Quarter-life Crisis

Yes, it is my hunch at work again. Not that I am dependent on my hunches to live my life, it is just that they can get quite closely accurate at times. My hunch have been sensing and telling me that many of my peers could be going through a quarter-life crisis. Not one or two, but many.

After reading related articles found on the web, I must admit I could be showing some symptoms, though I have yet to reach that of a crisis whereby I go into the "down-times" I had been. So maybe it won't hurt much to write a bit on this. Writing can serve as a means for me to connect with myself, so hopefully writing about quarter-life crisis could be a form of therapy for myself. Even if this may seem a wishful thinking on my part, I shall write anyway. Writing about things energises me more than talking about things.

But I am not any expert. I haven't lived beyond the quarter-life! So, I shalln't act like an expert. Instead, I will share a few links to some articles which I could somehow relate to. For me, reading about the experience of quarter-life crisis is a relieving one, because it normalises the occasional feelings of uncertainty and insecurity I have been feeling from time to time. Maybe it is not just because of my INFJ profile that I had no idea what I really want to do for my life, it's could be partly a quarter-life crisis? Mine was probably a mild but persistent one.

If you have read my blog carefully enough to decipher the meanings behind, I am searching....searching for that purpose of mine in life. There is many things I wish to achieve. I have gained, to some extent, the ability to generate my own income to feed and clothe myself. There are still so many things I have yet to achieve, and I have no idea what lies ahead. I am not sure how exactly I want my life to be. So I am still searching. It is not that I am not contented with the present state of things. I just fear being overly contented would led to stagnation. And more so, I believe there is more beyond the current state of things.

Maybe I am walking my journey of life. The nature of it is that of a transition. New challenges in the world of unknown. I just have to remind myself not to sull into depression or self-pity. It does not feel nice to stay down for too long...speaking from experience. So I shall walk the journey, and take comfort in this thought that even if I haven't been walking as fast as I would like to, it is merely because I was given the benefit to stop and smell the flowers along the way. And if there were detours, well, it is because nice flowers are hidden in special unknown spots which necessitate detours.

These are a few of the articles I have found online on quarter-life crisis, hope some paragraphs may shed some insights on you:

• http://www.handbag.com/relationships/yourlife/haveitallpressure/ - Quarter-life crisis: what do I really want to do with my life? by Ruth Nicholas
• http://www.handbag.com/careers/careerprogression/quarterlifecrisis/ - Quarter-life career crisis by Jane Smith
• http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com/- quarterlifecrisis.com (Not an article, but it is the official site of the book Quarterlife Crisis: the Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties)
• http://careers.asia1.com.sg/st_recruit/r20030823b.html - Young and restless (Article on ST RECRUIT ONLINE )
• http://careers.asia1.com.sg/st_recruit/r20030919.html - FAQs for quarter-lifers (Article on ST RECRUIT ONLINE )

Pleasant reading meantime.