Mid-life existential angst at 30

2006-07-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

“Never knew 30 candles can be quite a scary sight especially when they’re all lighted up. Hard to believe half of your life just passes by at a blink of an eye...” so says a blogger on blog.galvintan.com. For all of us 30 somethings who are clawing our way up the corporate ladder, fighting tooth and nail (albeit discreetly, shrouding our war tactics in sophisticated innuendoes) to become Vice Presidents by 40, mid-life existential angst has just decided to target a younger audience.

The term “mid-life crisis” was originally coined by Jaques who claimed that people encounter a crisis as they realize their own mortality and a change in time frame, from “time since birth”, to “time left to live”. Usually by the time a person approached the mid-century watershed, he would loose his earlier gung ho attitude about meeting life’s challenges head on and would start fretting about retirement, deteriorating health, a listless marriage, and a stagnant career trajectory. Add to that worries about his child’s higher education costs and wedding expenses, plus an ailing parent who needs constant nursing and life couldn’t really get any more complicated!
But that was at 50! So when a 29 year old says, “will be turning 30 in less than a week. They say life begins at 30 (we thought that was what was said to pep up those close to retirement – “life begins at 60!). If this is true, well I guess the only way to find out lies ahead. Growing old is a breeze...growing up is exhausting”, mid-life crisis takes on a whole new meaning.

For young greenhorn business graduates and software professionals, earning more than 6 lakhs per annum, life’s big investments, a house of one’s own, a luxury sedan, aren’t a distant dream. At the age of 28 K Ghosh, a software professional had a house of his own in Bangalore and drove a Chevrolet Optra. When he got married, he could afford to buy his wife a second car and told her she needn’t bother doing the rounds of placement agencies. Now at 32, he holidays in Sydney, puts aside a lump some for his retirement and travels to the USA on work, every three months. He is happy with his success but fears that by 35 he will have nothing else to aspire for. “I doubt I’ll find anything challenging enough in another couple of years”, he sighs. “Of course work is exciting, but I barely get to spend two hours a day with my wife. We haven’t started a family because where’s the time to even contemplate such a serious step!”

So Ghosh is a very busy ‘techie’. What’s new about that? Just that he confesses that he is toying with the idea of quitting his job and doing something drastically different by the time he is 35. He feels he has achieved all that he had dreamt of when he went in for a professional course. Coming from a middle class ‘service’ background, owning a house and vacationing abroad for the past three years was the penultimate middle-class dream. Though he barely gets time to indulge in philosophical reflections, before dropping of to sleep every night, and as he munches on his sandwhich at breakfast, he can’t help feeling a certain ennui creeping into his life.

Keira Knightley wants to take a break

2006-07-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: British actress Keira Knightley is planning to take a sabbatical from films, as she is worried that her 'workaholic' attitude may leave her hating the film industry.

Spears' second pregnancy left her stunned

2006-07-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: Britney Spears revealed that her second pregnancy, soon after the first one left her stunned, and said that her excitement and enthusiasm for the next child can be credited to hubby Kevin Federline.

Spears insisted that it was because of her hubby's love and support that she could come to terms with her subsequent pregnancy, less than a year after son Sean Preston was born.

Entertainment Forever

Mid-life existential angst at 30

Keira Knightley wants to take a break

Spears' second pregnancy left her stunned