March Madness and Existential Crises

So March happened, with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on my end. NYC, Toronto, NYC. Unfortunately, I left NYC just as some seriously nice weather hit, only to get to cold, gloomy Toronto. But it was good to see friends and family again. Over coffee one day, a friend in Toronto mentioned that she had been talking about career goals with her mom recently, and that her mother basically said that her goals had been something along the lines of: to get married and have a family, and to do it better than her mother did.

By contrast the expectations of our generation, what has been ingrained in us since we were small, is that we could be anything we wanted to be. I think that this is especially true of women, since this has not always been the case. When my mum was in school, women became (for the most part) secretaries, nurses, or teachers. Or they simply stayed home to raise a family. Our generation, on the other hand, has (allegedly) unlimited choice.

Now, this sort of choice is paralyzing. You grow up being told that everyone is 'unique' (just like everyone else) and that you need to find your path in life. As a result I think that many of my friends and colleagues have not really started career paths. The choice is overwhelming. Will this particular thing be 'special' enough? Is it my true path? What about this choice over here, is this the better one? Which to choose? Which is good enough, special enough, interesting enough, impressive enough? What are the standards that we are measuring these by?

Multiply this sort of anxiety by a million when you live in NYC. Not only are you trying to design your life path by attempting to make it special, unique, impressive, ambitious etc, but so is EVERYONE ELSE. And a lot of the time, it seems as though everyone else is doing it better than you are. Oh, and they're usually dressed better than you are while they're doing it.