MBA: The solution to the quarter life crisis

Are you around 30ish and don’t know where your life is going? Is your career not what you thought it would be? Not married with kids yet and you just got back from your high school reunion? Everyone there had kids and loved their spouses and you felt like an outcast all over again. You feel like you need a change, something to jump start your life, but you really don’t have any good ideas of what to do. Start your own company? Nah, sounds too hard and you haven’t had a good idea since you made a bong out of a Taco Cabana cup in 1997. Find a partner and settle down, start a family? Who would want to be with a looser like you. Look for a new job? But you hate interviewing. The real solution, got get an MBA. It won’t really solve any of your problems, but it will feel like you are doing something with your life for about 2 years. An MBA program has structure, and you will meet a lot of new people for the first time since you went to college. Also, you will feel smarter with that post graduate degree. You know you are just delaying the problem, but won’t it be easier to handle life with a better paying job?

Well, that seems to be the solution a lot of my friends a thinking about. In the last 2 weeks 4 separate friends pushing 30 have talked to me about going to get their MBAs. All have good reasons, but the biggest is “What the hell am I doing? Everyday at work is the same crap and I am not going anywhere. Hey, college was fun. Screw it, I am going back.”

Hey, I am not immune, I have thought of it too. But I am even too lazy to take the GRE and apply to schools. What we are all looking for of course is real fulfillment. When we look around others seem to be finding it in their families. Some are finding it in their jobs, but we don’t. Some of the best advice I got when I was young was from my father’s friend, “Don’t confuse your life with your career.” But when you are spending 10 hours a day at work it can be a hard thing to find meaning outside of the office. I like what I do, but I know I need to spend more time on stuff outside work. My parents advice would be “get a hobby, get a girlfriend”. Good advice, get off our asses and go do something. You don’t need to change the world to be happy and all that.

Angst is a bitch, and really annoying coming from yuppies like my friends and I.