At a cross-roads: A Quarter-Life Crisis
28 October 2006For the past two months or so, I’ve been in the midst of what I increasingly realize is a full blown Quarter Life Crisis.I’ll be writing more about all of the thoughts that have been going through my head in this process, but keep in mind that the timing will be offset, mainly because I need some time to actually review what I’ve written into a format that makes sense for the blog posts, but also to throw off some sensitive information. This is also a classic example of living your life vs. chronicling it, which is an existential problem I have with blogging and social networking in general. I mean if somebody looks really cool on their myspace or facebook page, then how much time are they investing in looking cool instead of actually being cool.Here’s a general intro to the quarter life crisis. A few weeks ago was the 2 year anniversary of starting my current job, i.e. my first and only job. As one naturally does at such milestones, I began to think about what I had accomplished, where I was going, what I wanted out of my career, my life, my mid-twenties. So all of those points came to a head.
Career
In terms of my career, I am on many levels on a pretty good track, but by others not. My decision two years ago was to take the current job I have at a relatively small automotive supplier where I have a lot of responsibility, over a “management training” program at a large Tier 1 automotive supplier. I got to thinking about what would have happened had I taken the other offer (an unhealthy comparison, but still difficult to avoid). The program was laid out such that after 2 years, you would be managing a plant of some sort, probably at least on the scale of the current $10M revenue 40 person small manufacturing plant I work at now. Whereas my current job has me with a lot of responsibility and a lot of exposure, but not the kind of overall people management or financial responsibility that I would have likely had. So I began to get very restless, somewhat frustrated, and very pensive. The restlessness of the position stemmed from my insatiable desire and unwavering motivation to do great things. My goal is not to be my engineering manager in 13 years or a sales manager in 5, but to be a top executive in a large company or a CEO of a moderate to large company that I may or may not have started. I have never been one to make easily attainable goals, and am a firm believer that almost anything worth having is difficult to attain.
Personal life
In my personal life (romantically, socially, family), it was also a critical time. It involved making decisions about where to live for the next several years, which would have natural impacts on the people I met, the friends I made, the life I built. And if I were to build that life and network in a place that I knew I didn’t want to be long term, then I wouldn’t throw myself into it as intensely. In your mid-twenties, you (or at least I) begin to realize that although decisions aren’t irreversible, they have more and more of an impact on the rest of your life. I’m glad we live in a time that these types of decisions (i.e. marriage, career, etc.) are made later in life, giving you more time to develop your life goals.
What I could be doing
Then, of course, there is the unhealthy comparison of thinking of what you could be doing. I’ve always had many diverse interests, so it’s difficult to select a certain path with much certainty, because I know that I’ll inherently be closing other doors. For a while I wanted to work in industrial design, dabbled with architecture, thought about more hard core engineering, before settling (or at least starting) my current path of general business in the automotive industry, with the goal of general management and business. I’m still very entrepreneurial, which currently finds its outlet in a few small projects, but nothing concrete due to financial and time and contractual limitations. So the feeling of missing out on industrial design or the Internet Bubble 2.0 (aka Web 2.0) sometimes gnaws at me.
The Promise of your mid-twenties
Finally, the real quarter life crisis was about making the most of what is certainly the best time of my life to date (although I believe that feeling will be with me throughout my life, as it has been in the past. my golden years are the current years, whenever that is). But there are some truly unique aspects of being in your mid-twenties (I won’t say best), such as the freedom to travel and live around the world, not having a mortgage or kids to tie you down, having a lot of energy and an open mind. Ramit Sethi wrote an interesting post about this “It Never Gets Easier than Now”, which is a highly recommended read. So making the most of my mid-twenties was a key driver in this quarter life crisis.
In the next few weeks, which will likely see the resolution of this crisis, I’ll be writing more, but mainly trying to get the feelings of the change, not only the resolution. For those of you who know me personally, you might already know the ending, but the process is just as interesting.
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