Scrypton

there has been a recent epidemic around my circle of friends. it’s not so much of a physical thing but more of an emotional thing. it’s all these questions surrounding the ‘post-uni, start-of-working life’ era. my friends call it the “quarter-life crisis”.

many of my friends in the circle had been exposed to great visions during university years. we went to churches and community groups where they always thaught us to have great dreams and to believe that we can always achieve what we want to achieve. as fresh teenagers without any ideas of what the real world looks like, we took these teachings as if they were the real and right thing we should do later in life when we all grow up. then we too told other friends and they were all hooked up.

then the university years came to an end and we were faced with these ‘interview giants’, forcing us to move to the ‘i dont care as long as i got a decent job’ corner and shattered all our big visions and dreams that we have built over the past years.

it all seems okay for the first few months in the new ‘workplace’ - where all we do is, well, work - just to make ends meet. nothing more, nothing else. although we certainly do well in what we work at, it’s by no means related to any of our original dreams. our dreams of becoming a world-known photographer and be able to travel around the world, or dreams of becoming a great musician - they are all substituted with one common dream: “to work good to earn good money and be happy in life with what it is we have”.

this really makes us feels like kids again. just like when kids being robbed of their dream of becoming a president or an austronaut, so are we being robbed with our dreams of achieving what we want - all because of money and how we desperately need them to survive; let alone to support our dreams.

i remember one verse in the bible about how we all become more and more ‘tied’ as we grow older. we value our dreams less and less, and we trade them with commitments, and dreams of the ones we love. i am not so sure if people in my circle is ready to give in to this idea - they certainly isnt sure whether we should just stay ‘mainstream’ in the 9-to-5 life and just become one of the many others; OR to really try to break the ‘rules’, just like we were thaught, and pursue our dreams.

but is it really possible? can you really become a world-known photographer without first collecting money from your ‘9-to-5′ jobs? have been been lied to these whole time when they said that we should always pursue our dreams no matter what?

quarter-life crisis is all about settling in. we are afraid that once we settle for the second best, we might not want to move again - at least until the mid-life crisis comes - which would mean that we would have wasted a further 20 years of our life not pursuing our dreams.

in a world of many options, should we stay true to what we believe, or is commitment to ‘give in to what life requires’ the best way to go?