Chrysalis: Cashing In On Your Quarter-Life Crisis
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
relationships
11:00AM, Thursday June 4th 2009
Many months ago I wrote a column about Restless Life Syndrome, a name I borrowed from an advice column on Salon to describe the phenomenon of, well, feeling restless in one’s life — of consciously or unconsciously searching for greater meaning through a series of often meaningless jobs, relationships, and purchases. In my piece I wrote that Restless Life Syndrome is another name for a variety of trendy “phenomenons” like the quarter-life crisis, Saturn Return, mid-life crisis, and empty-nest syndrome, and this restlessness so many of us feel at some point isn’t so much a product of one’s age, but of life in general.
The semantics in the questions we ask ourselves from one stage of our lives to the next may change, but the intention behind them is always the same: “What do we need to live our most enriched, fulfilled, and happiest lives?” As I wrote in my first column on Restless Life Syndrome — and what I maintain now — is there isn’t a quick answer to the question or an easy formula through the restlessness, and in fact, the best way to achieve the happiness we all so want is to go through the discomfort and messiness of the unknown. As advice columnist Cary Tennis wrote: ““Discomfort becomes knowledge in the caldron of action,” adding: “You come to know that if you just feel the pain and move on, you can build your shelter and keep out of the rain.” It’s in the discomfort that we learn who we are and what we need to live our happiest, most fulfilled lives.
Some people, however, would rather you believe the answer is an expensive weekend workshop where you learn the key to your happiness. Christine Hassler”, life coach, author, and self-described “twentysomething & quarter-life crisis expert” has started offering a “transformational” workshop she calls “Chrysalis.” Chrysalis, she explains, is “the delicate process that changes a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly with intricate and vibrantly colored wings.” And for $695 ($595 if you register early), plus the price of transportation to LA, you can earn your own wings in just two days! How will you earn those wings, you ask? Why, you’ll “dive into your feminine being,” of course, and “come out of your cocoon of doubt, anxiety, unworthiness, fear and confusion.” You’ll do that anyway just by, you know, living your life, but this way gets you through all the messiness in a single weekend.
In a column on Huffington Post, Hassler explains that at 32, she is coming out of her own cocoon, transforming into a beautiful butterfly herself, “rounding the corner of what has been a period of intense personal discovery and transformation,” including: “a broken engagement, leaving a successful career, debt, confusion about [her] life purpose, depression, and health issues.” But not, it seems, a “quick fix” transformational workshop. In fact, Hessler actually pooh-poohs the quick fix, explaining that there isn’t a job or relationship — or weekend course? — that can bring happiness, and that, get this, happiness and fulfillment reside inside us.
“The funny thing is,” she writes, “once we reach one destination, along comes another one, and another one, and another one, and we’re in a constant state of external searching for things that can only truly be found inside. Looking outside of ourselves for happiness and fulfillment is an old paradigm.” A paradigm, it seems, Hessler is more than happy to exploit. Save your money, quarter-lifers, and transform into a beautiful butterfly the old-fashioned way: through the support of good friends, a few drinks, and a series of ill-fated relationships. The wings you’ll earn that way will take you much farther, and transform you more deeply than a weekend workshop ever could. I promise.
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Muttface
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 12:11 pm: [report]
It seems that most people who are in the midst of a quarter-life crisis tend to be ridicuously self-centered and narcissistic. It’s not about looking “within” or whatever else crap the self-help industry sells you. Maybe if people were to devote a quarter of their time they devote to themselves to causes greater then themselves, they might feel a little more fulfilled. Since when was life all about you?
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 12:16 pm: [report]
I’d like to point out these are the same people who claim the glass is half empty…why not just get a smaller glass and be done with it.
Bad Breakup
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 02:01 pm: [report]
@CheeeeEEEEse: It depends on if the glass was filled halfway from emptiness, or the glass is halfway empty from the contents being taken out of a previous full state. Then you can make an accurate speculation.
A “quarter-life crisis” is the term I have used a few times to describe a situation I find myself in and out of. However, it has never concerned who I am, for I have always known that. It’s more about the world as I perceive it, and if any of it matters enough to attempt to make anything above a mediocre life. “What do I want to do with myself?” I often find myself asking. Each path leads to the same conclusion, with the passing of life and eventual non-existence in any form, as the memory of me in others slowly dissolves. Even a life lived grandly, celebrated by fame and fortune, would still be just a life, just a small, dull flash in the mellenia of human history. It’s when I think like this that I start to believe life is best lived for oneself, enriching your own experience of this short life in a decades-long masturbatory orgasm.
Of course, I could be wrong.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 02:03 pm: [report]
@Bad Breakup: I was an engineering major at one point, the specifications of that glass were twice what they needed to be!
MoonBabye
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 06:06 pm: [report]
I know that, as a person who completed college (undergrad) going on four years ago, I still feel unsettled. I work with mostly older, settled people yet I’m young and still trying to establish myself in the world. It does feel hard from time to time but it feels like these people make light of life’s transitions all in the name of a quick buck. I get that they can’t make a dime if people aren’t purchasing, but at they same time, shouldn’t people actually seek to help others instead of profiting on their misery? If what she has to say is so helpful, it ought to be a calling to help people without the additional bottom line. Like the end of the article said, I’d rather grow my own wings through trial and error. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That and going back to school.
Bad Breakup
wrote on June 4 2009 @ 07:08 pm: [report]
@CheeeeEEEEse: I like the cut of your jib.
theoldman
wrote on June 6 2009 @ 12:14 pm: [report]
Your quarter life crisis isn’t a crisis so much as an opportunity to cliche “engage in self discovery”. You have a time where you have no major obligations that cannot be deferred (let’s hope) and go out and explore. You won’t ever pass this way again so exploit it.
santamonica.girl
wrote on June 20 2009 @ 05:46 pm: [report]
Wow - you guys have no clue. I’m a client of Christine’s and have done Chrysalis. Let me tell you; it was worth it. No, it doesn’t change the course of your life or make you suddenly rich or find the right job. But what she DOES promise (and compeletely delivers) is that you end it with a feeling of connection to the earth, to yourself and to others like you’ve never experienced before. And that, my friends, can lead you into better intuition on your own life.
Many of us really struggled in our twenties (and I mean AGONIZED) over what life to live, who we were, etc. and Christine (while I certainly don’t agree with her on everything) has been absolutely instrumental in me becoming the person I am now.
I don’t say this is for everyone, and I’m not trying to defend her (she needs no defense) but I write this because I am a little shocked at how closeminded some people are and how they will try to recruit closemindedness when some women realy can and do suffer from a quarterlife “crisis”.
santamonica.girl
wrote on June 20 2009 @ 05:48 pm: [report]
OH, and PS - don’t let the price tag fool you. I did not pay NEAR that amount. She was willing to work with me to make it happen. Christine has to make money just like the rest of us - think about it. How much do YOU think a life coach makes? Yeah, not much.