Quarter Life Crisis - Time to do Something About It

I think I’m going through what you’d call, quarter-life crisis.

What do I want to do with my life? What kind of man do I want to marry? Those are probably the two most critical questions people my age are going through. The underlying assumption with the second question is that I want to get married. I’m really not sure about that. And it might very well be dependent on the answer to the first question. What is it that you want to do with your life, Michelle?

What is your plan A?

I’ve spent the past 8 years building the backup plan, going to school, getting good grades, participating in all the extra-curricular activities, beefing up the resume, finding a good job, working like a dog climbing the corporate ladder. I feel exhausted.  While it’s nice to watch the number in my bank account grow bigger and bigger, and I can buy myself necklaces from Tiffany’s,  designer things for my friends, one weekend I’m in New York, and the next I’m in L.A., why am I feeling a diminishing sense of self?

I feel lost and frustrated and angry. I find myself less and less interesting, and wonder how is it possible anybody else would find me interesting?

I don’t know what to be proud of anymore.

I talk to my friends and family, mentors and former bosses to figure out what’s wrong with me. They all tell me reassuringly that everyone hates their first job, you just gotta suck it up and do your time. As if in jail, a self-imposed prison, but I haven’t committed any crimes. “Pay your dues,” they say.

What if I don’t want to become a Senior Executive in a consulting firm? What dues am I paying for? What if I have no desire spending all day mapping process flows, writing training manuals, scheduling which server is migrated when? I admit, it does get more interesting as you get higher up in the organization and lift your head out of the weeds, and start looking at the whole picture. And we do make a big difference for our clients’ businesses. It can be a very rewarding career if that’s what you would like to do. I watch our Senior Executives - charismatic, energetic and intelligent - walking into meetings with clients, convincing them where they need to adjust their business model, what the industry best practices are, how our high performance operating model can be tailored to their specific needs and drive X amount of additional profits. 10 years later I could be like that. Traveling in business class, hanging out at airport VIP lounges, having lunch with CEO’s, CTO’s, CMO’s of Fortune 500 companies, making million dollar deals. But what about that dream I’ve had ever since my teens, the little voice in my head that just keeps saying - I want to live by the beach and…

I’m really just selling my soul in exchange for money.

Those years working at the consulting firm were a really difficult and confusing time for me. On the one hand I hoped the firm would give me what I’d wanted - interesting work. On the other, I was reaching deep inside myself desperately asking, what is interesting work?

I’d go back to school and take personality tests, buy myself self-help books to figure out where my strengths are. I reach back into my memory and find my happiest moments, looking for clues as to what I might enjoy and be good at doing. I fly myself on my own dime to Toronto, just to check out advertising information fairs to see if that’s a field I maybe, perhaps want to get into.

Amid all this soul-searching, I buy a house, go on a bunch of dates, work 40-80 hours a week, fly between Vancouver and Toronto, (or Fort McMurray, or San Francisco, or Montreal, or Calgary) every week, constantly jetlagged and sleep deprived. I was literally, all over the place, physically, and emotionally. I was a helicopter that had lost its main rotor, spinning out of control into oblivion.

What kept me from walking away sooner was the question, what do I want to do instead? To give up this “glamorous” job I’d worked so hard for. There were a whole bunch of options, I could be a copywriter at an advertising firm, or get into marketing, or start my own business, or move to China and find a Chinese husband (and be a housewife), or move to Korea and teach English for a year, or be a writer, but that doesn’t make any money, so that’s out of the question. I really couldn’t find anything that would offer better emotional and financial compensation than the job I’d already held.

So I stalled,

and stalled,

and stalled, my life was on hold, I felt stuck. I was paralyzed with indecision.

As I was going through all this internal turmoil, my friend Will sends me a link to a podcast given by a Stanford professor – Randy Komisar, talking about how to find your passion and pursue it. He addressed the question: what if I’m passionate about everything? Instead of thinking you’re only allowed to have the ONE and only passion, free yourself to think a portfolio of passions, marrying whatever you’re interested in now with whatever opportunities in front of you. Think short term. Let life make sense in the rearview mirror, because it doesn’t make sense in the windshield.

And the opportunity that presented itself to me was grandma’s 90^th birthday.

Listen to Grandmothers - They're Usually Wise

“You’re 26 years old, you should get a boyfriend,” grandma bossed me over the phone.

“Yes grandma…maybe you could hook me up?” I joked.

“Would you come back if I found you a good Chinese boy?” grandma asked in all seriousness.

“If we really like each other. Yes, I would,” I said in all seriousness back.

“Ok, I’ll ask the neighbors,” grandma concluded decisively.

Grandma and I are very close. Dad calls her every weekend. They talk about health, family, work. And I tell her about my boy troubles. Grandma always lends a patient ear for the boy in question, and the issues at hand. Sometimes she’d tell me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Other times she’d say it’s downright unacceptable. And that night was no different. Another evening of friendly exchange on modern dating dilemmas, and tried and true, century-old advice on love. You know – girl talk.

Just because grandma’s one of the “girls”, doesn’t mean our lifestyles in any way resemble one another’s. Grandma lives in China, and I live in Canada. She’s 89. I’m 26. Her day might consist of watering the plants in the morning, followed by a light lunch taken leisurely with aunt and uncle. Nap in the warm afternoon sun, and then watch Chinese Opera while sipping at a cup of fragrant jasmine tea. Meanwhile, I bounce out of bed at exactly 7:15, after slamming the snooze button for the nth time, slip into something professional-looking, and spend the day trying to management consult our clients on how their businesses can be efficiently maximized, with every single risk carefully calculated and resources fully optimized. At the end of the day, grandma looks as radiant as a youthful yogi, and I come home looking haggard like an old lady.

Which doesn’t help, especially if you’re single and looking…and aging rapidly…

Chinese people often say when you have an elder in the family over the age of 90; you pretty much have a live Buddha living at home. What this means is, the accumulated wisdom and goodness from this one person, will bask the entire family in glory.

I didn’t believe it…

And thought it was just something nice people like to say when they visited grandma..

Until a fleck of that blessing fell upon me. Like fairy gold dust.

 

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A few months later, I am in China.

Sitting in a quaint little café, sipping green tea, watching colorful people walk by.

I open my little brown notebook, and scribble down plans for the exciting upcoming 3 months - two months of traveling across China, and the last month, go to Bali, live by the beach, and experiment with my dream.

I chuckle quietly to myself, and wonder if this whole thing would have happened if it weren’t for grandma. How I would still be stuck in my cubicle, in my crisp white collar shirt and charcoal pencil skirt, frantically trying to find myself in the corporate world, wondering when I finally reach the top, if happiness is waiting for me there…

Yes, it is happiness, or the lack thereof, that brings me to the beginning of this story…