Woe be the quarterlifers: a generation of folks between the ages of 18 and 34 that’s sixty million strong, according to Hana R. Alberts in her recent Forbes.com piece “The Economics of Quarterlife.” It’s a generation she describes as “confused and even paralyzed by too many choices and a lack of direction…” And quarterlife is a time, she writes, filled with landmarks like first jobs, first apartments, first loves, first children–and with those landmarks, loads of which-way-should-I-gos:
These landmarks raise a lot of questions too, some banal and others weighty. Should I live with a roommate or live alone? At home or abroad? Work or go back to school? Do something I love or make money? Keep my hair long (unruly, like a teenager) or short (neat, like an adult)? Now that I’m out on my own (mentally if not always physically), what are my politics, my values, goals, desires? What is my role with respect to my parents, my colleagues, my friends, my romantic interests?
Those are some serious questions. What do you think? Do these questions resonate? Are these issues particular to quarterlifers? And how, pray tell, do you go about answering them?
Barbara Kelley
Shannon Kelley
Undecided 