I don't know about anybody else, but the "quarterlife crisis" is as real as anything for me. I'm 29, with two degrees, £20,000 of debt, and two part-time jobs to pay it off. Neither earns me enough to live on, let alone pay off my debts, because I'm studying for a still further degree, even though experience teaches that qualifications rarely lead to good jobs. Was it all a lie we were told? Why don't good graduates move on to the kinds of jobs that society told us would be ours? Why isn't education the royal road to riches and why have I spent the best years of my life being frustrated in a lecture theatre? Simon Gillett, Edinburgh
Promises, promises ... the simple truth is there simply aren’t enough plum jobs with peachy salaries to go around. We can’t all have THE job with THE salary. Which is very annoying for those of us who have to scrape together pennies while our more successful friends stack up pounds. Your situation is very typical - and you’ve every right to feel bitter. For you, the promise was broken. For others, it was fulfilled. We come under far too much pressure - from parents and from government - to go to university. Many of us shouldn’t bother - we should start businesses, go travelling or find work. That way we might avoid the twin evils of under and un-employment that the quarterlife crisis generation now faces. Just don’t waste any more time being frustrated.
I expect that many who identify with the "quarterlife crisis" theory are graduates, and have delayed children and house buying and have opted for a "career" instead. But not every twentysomething lives like this. Surely most are not graduates, have children, are not debating whether to decamp to Bali, but are getting on with real life? Doesn't university delay adolescence for a great deal of people and shouldn't these complaining twentysomethings simply grow up? Helen Roberts, Leicester
Permastudents - those who can’t kick the campus habit - are a new demographic. And there are more and more of them every year. They study not to move on but to stay still. For them university is a comforting safe place, free from the pressures of the world of work. Maybe they’re scared or maybe they’re lazy, maybe they’re even very studious; everyone has a different motivation. But those who make the choice to stay on or go back don’t do so lightly. It costs, lots, and not just in money. Lots of people, like you, think those who won’t stop studying are just losers. Anything, job, partner, parent or programme of study that stops you moving forward and growing up is a bad thing. So if you’re studying but not actually learning anything about yourself, it’s time to get real.
Wouldn't you agree that all twentysomethings in this country should emigrate somewhere where one's soul doesn't have to be mortgaged to the devil in exchange for a half decent education and somewhere to live? Shangri-La, Eldorado, Utopia - they all meant something once, a dream of a better life, which our generation has been conditioned into believing unattainable. Why don't we leave the older generation to bear the tax burden of their own state-sponsored pensions, and see who's whingeing then? We vote to head for Barbados, or possibly the Cook Islands. Are you coming? Peter and Liza, Horton-cum-Studley
Packing my bags now - leaving forwarding address for a student loans company, several credit cards and my bank. But seriously, a small, but significant, number of British undergrads are heading abroad, especially to the US, to get a better-value education. We are a super-mobile generation. See you in the Cook Islands.
It's the generation above us that have sucked the property market dry, are sitting on tons of equity and savings, and they have the nerve to complain that my generation is selfish. The thing I hate most are those complacent newspaper articles written by smug baby boomers about how young women today are selfishly pursuing their careers instead of having babies. I would love to be able to have a baby in my twenties while I'm physically best able to, but as a would-be academic I have to work 60 hours a week to live, don't have a pension, can't even afford to rent my own flat - how can I afford to have children? Z.C., Cambridge
We ALL hate those articles. The desire to have a child is not selfish. And it’s unfair that you cannot have the career, the flat and the baby at the time you want to. That’s because property, especially in Cambridge and for a first time buyer, has never been so expensive, and work, especially academia, has never been so insecure. A lot of the pressure to have kids comes from well-meaning would-be grandparents. So, if possible, ask them to turn on the cash tap. There are many other women in your position, that’s one big pool of potential baby-sitters and support. Create your own family of choice.
We are all told we have so much more choice than our parents did, but many of us have no idea what we want to do. Even those who graduate with a clear career path often find they need further qualifications, which cost more money. It's no wander so many of us feel like failures. Combine this with the pressure to look stunning and spend all the money we don't have on beauty products and gyms so that we can spend more money we don't have on a going out to meet a partner - is it any wonder that we can't cope? Angela Walker, Leicester
We are a demographic under siege. Every company out there wants a piece of our twentysomething ass. The pressure to buy a successful identity and then spend tons of cash maintaining it are huge. We need to spread our sense of self between work, friends, family and the place we call home. Placing too much emphasis on one particular area, usually the things we buy, means that when that goes wrong we feel our entire life has fallen to pieces. In fact, it hasn’t. Break the siege, don’t buy into the myth that your twenties are the time of your life.
While you do an excellent job of describing the symptoms of a "quarterlife crisis", you don't seem to propose much in the way of a solution, aside from telling us not to worry. This is easier said than done, and I was wondering if you had any more practical, immediate solutions? Beth Gilligan, New York
My book [details below] contains plenty of very practical solutions. Most of these were suggested by the people I interviewed. So I know they work. The idea is that, by reading the book, you learn from their mistakes. And mine. I think readers will find the chapters on money especially helpful. There are phone numbers and websites, quick-fixes and slow-sort-it-outs galore. But only you can do something about your quarterlife crisis.
