When I graduated, I got a job in publishing after five unpaid magazine internships. It was perfect and glamorous. I would write, design fashion spreads, and go to photo shoots. I felt ready. Once I was on my own in New York City, the reality set in that I wasn’t making enough money to cover my rent. I was adjusting to a lifestyle that was so unnatural compared to my college experience. I felt like I wasn’t enjoying my life, but just going through the motions. People bumped into me on the subway, and I snapped at them. I stopped looking at buildings and writing poetry. Mentally, I began to feel numb, like my life, my job, and my bills were just another unpaid internship that would be over at the end of the summer or a spring break vacation gone sour — but that was not the reality.
“Reaching your goals always takes longer than you expect. There’s no such thing as instant gratification.”
Musician, 29, serious relationship, California
I developed a terrible fear that my job wasn’t a real career because I couldn’t support myself. I was embarrassed. What did I have to show for myself? Was everyone waiting for me to stop with the publishing business and start my “real” career in business or law? It feels like life at twenty-three is just another round of make-believe. I want to pay my own taxes and cover my rent and start thinking about buying a house. And then I don’t — I want to stay out until midnight singing karaoke with my girlfriends and read all day on Sunday. I want to pretend for a little while longer. I wait for a turning point, a clearing in my head. I am torn between reality and make-believe.
I am part of “the Entitlement Generation.” I was encouraged to think creatively. I had so many options that I had too many. This led to a sort of plateau in my personal development. It is a double-edged sword because on the one hand I am so blessed with my experiences and endless options, but on the other hand, I still feel like a child. I feel like my job isn’t real because I am not where my parents were at my age. Walking home, in the shoes my father bought me, I still feel I have yet to grow up.
CHAMPAGNE TOASTS
AND EXPECTATION HANGOVERS
There is a lot to celebrate in your twenties. You may “toast” your first job, first home, first love, first anniversary, first promotion, first child. You may boast about your graduation from college and have your first real experience of adult independence and freedom. But these celebrations are often followed by grown-up doses of disappointment and the reality of deferred gratification — something the instant-gratification generation often forgets exists. Relationships end. Jobs are harder to get. Friends fade. Money is tight. Perhaps your life as a twenty something is not living up to the picture of what you thought it would look like. You probably didn’t expect twenty-something life to be this hard.
“The most difficult thing about being a twenty something is being okay with the fact that your first job, your first apartment, your love life, your finances, your family and friends are not going to be at all what you hoped or expected, and instead of worrying about it, enjoy it.”
Accountant, 27, single, New York
If you can relate, you may be experiencing what I call an “Expectation Hangover,” which is a term I created to help twenty somethings get a handle on what they are going through. While I discuss how to deal with Expectation Hangovers in the next chapter, here is my dictionary-quality definition of an Expectation Hangover™: the myriad undesirable feelings or thoughts present when a desired result is not met or an undesired, unexpected event occurs. (Sounds pretty official, huh? If this book thing doesn’t work out, perhaps I’ll write for Webster’s . . . )
I’ve heard thousands of twenty somethings complain that life is not turning out like they thought. It sounds rather catastrophic to some to label this as a quarter-life “crisis.” Instead, it is simply discontent and not knowing what to do about it, an unhappy mix of morning-after feelings and symptoms. An Expectation Hangover does not have to come from something huge to affect you greatly. For instance, think of how much a tiny little splinter bothers you. Until you get it out, it is painful and annoying — and often the process of removal is no bowl of cherries either. But if you have a good set of tweezers and a steady hand, the removal process does not have to be so bad. Like a splinter, Expectation Hangovers get worse the longer they remain — but with the right tools you can recover from them quickly, or better yet, prevent them in the first place.
“I thought I’d be a lot ‘happier’ at this point. I thought I’d know what I wanted to do as a career and be doing it (but I’m not). I thought my serious boyfriend would be the type of man who had a stable job where he made good money (but he’s sort of ‘finding himself’ too). I thought some of my friendships would never change, but they have (for the worse). I thought I’d be getting my master’s degree, but I haven’t because I didn’t expect to be so indecisive.”
Program coordinator, 27, serious relationship, California
And sometimes you just have to accept that you’ll pay some dues in your twenties. Expect that your first job, relationship, or apartment may not be 100 percent exactly what you want. Trust me, with time and patience, your life will align in a way that exceeds your expectations.
“WHERE’S MY CORNER OFFICE?” by Patrick, 22
DECLARATION: Don’t give up on your dreams,but don’t be afraid to tweak them a bit.
They say that college is the best four to eight and a half years of your life. Whoever “they” are, they hit the nail right on the head. College was everything I could have imagined it to be and more. While a lot of aspects of campus life mirror what is portrayed in the movies, one major aspect of “movie college life” is completely inaccurate: When Bill McPopular gets close to graduation, job offers start coming in. And of course Mr. McPopular’s job offers are for incredible amounts of money with amazing benefits, most of the time including cars, mansions, and beautiful women.
I was not naive enough to actually believe that happened in real life, but I thought that finding a job out of college would be easy. I never thought making it on my own would be this hard. I graduated with a respectable 3.3 GPA with extracurricular activities and leadership roles under my belt — I did all the right “get a good job after college” preparatory things. Heck, my sister lovingly refers to me as her “overachieving brother.” I was sure that I was a shoo-in for a decent job out of college.
My opinion about my opportunities out of college was inflated by positive reinforcement from professors and advisers. Putting all those compliments together with parents who made life pretty easy, it seemed like I was completely awesome.
I haven’t had horribly bad luck since graduation. I have a roof over my head, a head on my shoulders, and some money in my wallet. On the other hand, I haven’t had incredibly good luck either. I just have not reached my expectation of having a respectable job that’s rewarding both financially and personally. That makes the exciting dating life I expected out of college unaffordable and thus unattainable as well. I am building up the all-important experience factor that will hopefully land me the great job soon, but I am still the lowly, dateless, broke intern.
I may have been an all-star during college, but now that I am in the big leagues, I am just another rookie who has to pay his dues with a résumé that looks like everybody else’s. Now I see that the encouragement I received from mentors was supposed to be used as a spark to get my fire going after college, instead of using it as the wind in my sail. Instead of having it motivate me to get where I wanted to go, I used it as the fuel that would take me there without much effort. It took a month or two of getting kicked in the