So what’s the alternative? Do you go work in **Declan’s **production plant as a plant manager? Buy a house out in Scranton, PA or some equivalent for $90,000 and go to Olive Garden out on Rt 6 on weekends?
I mean there are pros and cons to both the elite urban professional services associate and the suburban 9 to 5 man lifestyles.
Everyone has their preferred work environment, lifestyle and work/life balance needs. That’s what makes this country great. Part of transitioning from college student to adult is deciding what sort of lifestyle you want to lead, not what you think you are supposed to lead.
Here’s the thing though. The reality is that the world is getting more competetive. To complete, we will need a workforce that is more educated, not less. The trend is always to automate or outsource all jobs that are complex, dangerous, tedious or repetetive. Skilled (expensive) machinists tend to get replaced by prefab parts and robotic assemblers. Custom software developers tend to get replaced by enterprise one size fits all systems.
So bottom line, there will be more opportunity for people who invent widgets, not people who make them.
This is another thing that I’ve noticed that is very tied to the quarter-life crisis: the belief that living in New York City is the be-all and end-all of everyone’s existence. And that everything else is living in the 'burbs with absolutely nothing to do, ever.
And as a young kid who owns his own house in the burbs, it never made any sense to me. While it’s not NYC, the city is a few minutes drive from the burbs. So I can get good coffee or go to a bar that’s not a chain anytime I want with little effort. I don’t do clubs, so suggesting that to me is likely to elicit a blank stare. I can’t imagine people that would “go clubbing” for fun.
But then, there’s still a class of people that act like I settled for a life in the burbs instead of deciding it would be better to own my own home than rent a mice-infested run down apartment in the trendy part of the city.
I never said they did. I’m saying that a lot of young people (especially those in the midst of a quarter-life crisis) will wistfully sit back and tell everyone their big plans for moving to New York City because they don’t want to be stuck in the burbs while at the same time having no idea why they really want to be there other than “It’s New York City, why don’t you want to live there?”
EDIT: You’ll even see it on threads on the SDMB where supposed grown ups will bitch and moan that they don’t want to live in the suburbs because they don’t want to be driving 20 minutes just to get to the grocery store. I live in the burbs and driving 20 minutes in any direction would bring me to a dozen grocery stores.
Replace “grocery store” with any other destination and the result is the same.
But the dichotomy of the trendy urban lifestyle versus the suburban commuter lifestyle exists here in Atlanta, too. (And, I’d imagine, in most cities of any size in the US.)
It’s a great place to go if you aren’t sure of yourself. You act fairly sure of yourself, so why are you upset that others are not? I moved to NYC when I was 18, spent a great deal of my time, ‘clubbing’, and had some great experiences met a lot of fascinating people. I wanted to live in NYC since I was 6, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I got here, but I got here and I’m still here a dozen years later. That being said, I had some great times when I lived out in the burbs in New Jersey.
It’s natural to not have any clue where you want to go in life at 23 years old. It’s actually fairly rare that people get out of college knowing exactly what they want, and even rarer that they know how to get it.
I know the area where you live, I mean I’m not an expert on it but I’ve spent time up around there, I know what it’s like. I wouldn’t want to live there. If I were going to live up that way I’d go even further like into Duchess county. I’d rather live in a trailer in Duchess county than a McMansion in Westchester but that’s just me. It’s all about preference. Personally I don’t like the suburbs very much. I need the country or the city.
I grew up in the country and if I drove 20 minutes in any direction I’d hit several establishments too.
Oh, I thought, “Barackchester”, meant Westchester, since you said that “It’s not NYC but the city…” I thought you meant that where you lived wasn’t NYC but that you could get to it easily, so I just assumed Westchester.
Another factor in this is that we have kids a lot later. A couples generations back people got married in college and started popping out the kids soon after. They didn’t have the same lack of purpose, mass of choices and time to contemplate that young people have now.
Indeed, we may simply be seeing the mid-life crisis hitting earlier. Instead of hitting after the kids move out, it hits before the kids come.
I think a lot of the deal is back to the problem people starting noticing years ago. We have no rite-of-passage into adulthood. It just seems to be getting more and more vague. Back in the Tribal days it was an actual ceremony. Then it kind of evolved into various things. Like getting your first real job, or getting married, or getting your own house. But as those things get less and less distinct, and pushed back later and later into life, people can end up in their 20’s or even early thirties with no personal sence that they are an adult. There was no moment to mark the change, things just slowly evolved into where they are, but I think the “moment” is an important part of psychology.
I like the restaurants and the night life. Also, not having to deal with a car is nice.
Problem is, New York is a little too expensive these days to just up and move there with no job or plan. I mean unless you want to be an hipster beatnik in Williamsberg. To truly enjoy it, you need a high paying job and that means taking one of those I-banker analyst / junior associate lawyer / consultant jobs where you have to work all the time.
I agree with just about everything you say. I guess my only point was that part of the quarter-life malaise comes from the fact that doing the “right thing” didn’t exactly lead to easy street like we thought it would.
The whole NYC conversation (I’m in Chicago, but it’s the same deal) is pretty fascinating. I have mixed feelings about it. Most days I wouldn’t trade my city lifestyle for anything, but then I go see a friend in their big-ass house in the burbs, and I think maybe I’m missing the boat. But then I walk down to the corner bar and drink until that thought is gone.
As for myself, I had my little QLC, bought an electric guitar and a motorcycle, and promptly stored them both away because I have too many hours to bill to be able to use them.
You have the LUXURY of having a change in life crisis. Once kids come, its a change in life crisis nearly every damn day, time goes by in a blur. It probably isn’t a surprise that the traditional “mid life crisis” tends to happen as kids get independent (or you can see independence peering at you). When kids are dependent on you, you don’t worry about what you want.
My parents didn’t have the luxury of having a navel gazing crisis right out of college - it was “hit the ground running” with kids. They were too busy facing ‘we have to move 800 miles from our families to feed our children.’
Kid’s don’t “just come”. People decided back then to get married and have kids at 22. They also graduated college, went to work for whatever job sounded like the best fit and stayed there for 30 years.
The difference is now, people don’t necessarily want to spend their entire lives locked into a job they barely tolerate or the wife and kids thing.