Quarter Life crisis

Is there such thing as quarter life crisis? A couple of years ago, a few colleagues were discussing about it and I couldn't understand how people so young can have quarter life crisis and what it's all about. Thought only middle age people have mid life crisis!

As I progress further in my career (and age), I slowly came to realise what they mean by having a quarter life crisis. You are in your thirties (or nearing), you are nowhere near where you wanted to be, all those years of dreaming to be rich by thirty or fourty is now haunting you and you suddenly realise, horror of horror, that you might need to work till retirement and still not have enough money to live comfortably after retirement! You begin to "think of the future", probably look for other jobs or look for opportunities to start your own business. That is the problem actually.. when you start to think about this, you start to know that you do not have enough capital to start a business (or you think you do but after doing the maths become incresingly depressed that you are not as well doing as you think you are), but you really do not work for someone anymore.

I am not sure if this is just a passing phase or increasingly becoming a trend. But many of my friends approaching thirties or in their early thirties are not happy with their jobs. I have heard of quite a few who wants to start their own business because they do not want to work for people anymore, they want to be their own boss, dictate their own ways and (drumroll....tada..) become rich. Not as easy as it sounds though, I know some friends running their own business and they are under huge amount of pressures whenever business are slow. Cashflow is a very important word for them..

Sigh... such is the life of a working adult? Is there no way out of this? When can one get out of the rat race and enjoy what they do? I think I am coming to a stage whereby I am willing to forego a higher pay for better quality working life, i.e. get paid less but do something less stressful and have more personal time. Wouldn't you?