Here we go again: The Line Between Prolonged Adolescence and Adulthood

An old friend was here on vacation for a couple weeks. At one point in both our lives we were really good friends but I don't think we've hung out in at least a few years now. It was nice hanging out with my old friend. It was kind of sad too though. As we talked he revealed that the way he lives his life is kind of an attempt to recapture when we were undergraduate university students, devoid of all responsibility except maybe sometimes making it to class and trying to get decent grades despite binge drinking 4 nights a week. He told about his fear of growing up and becoming an adult with adult responsibilities which I pointed out that, unfortunately he already has. My judgmental perspective was that he was just living in denial of it. 

 It's not a fine line between this new prolonged adolescence the masses of middle class kids who went to university because their parent's wanted them to, have jobs that maybe they like or maybe they stay in their safe office job because well that's what you're supposed to do when you graduate isn't it aren't you supposed to want that white collar job with moderate responsibility and autonomy with good benefits? It's not a definitive line at all, yet somehow so many young adults are stuck in this place where they are waiting to feel like a grown-up, waiting to suddenly embody this vision of what their parent's and every responsible adult encountered in their lives (teachers, profs, parent's friends, white collar professionals on TV) must have felt like at their age. We're a huge group of Canadian adolescents who are now in our mid to late 20s that are waiting for answers and feelings and a sense of accomplishment without sitting down to actually figure out how we'll get there and why we want to. 

 Aren't you supposed to buy a condo after a couple years? Is this not what our parents, who were this new generation of the emerging middle-class Canadian, raised us to be? And if it is why aren't we happy yet? Well I'll tell you straight up it might be a mixture of equal parts of post alcohol consumption depression, feeling like an out of place weird amongst peers at work, facing the ongoing wrath of decisions other people made for us and television telling us that we need more. My friend is confused, I'm confused. So I started another graduate school program a couple weeks ago. I find myself still pretty defeated from not being able to motivate myself to finish my current MA and torn because I really really do want to do a PhD in nursing more than anything in the world right now. And I wonder what will happen when I finally do successfully defend my thesis? What will be different then? 

 love, 

 Michelle D.