By Kayla Frazier
Staff Writer

Turning 21-years old is a big checkpoint in someone’s life. All that was once out of your reach is now in the palm of your hand. The first place that was on the agenda in my case was the bars of NYC. I wanted to know what it was like. Of course, when you’re on the outside looking in, the bar is all fun and games — just people blissfully enjoying themselves. In the big picture that’s exactly what it is, an escape from the real world.

But one thing that stood out the most was that these people were 21-years-old or older and already tired of adulting, basically having a quarter life crisis. One person that stood out to me was a guy at a club called Fat Baby. He was 24-years-old, not much older than me.

“I’m 24-years-old and I’m miserable. This is not what life is supposed to be,” he said to me. “College worked me to death and now I’m at a corporate job that I hate.” I looked at him in complete awe. “I’m going to quit my job and travel the world, see all the continents, because I can’t live life like this,” he continued.

One would think that he’s was crazy, fresh out of college with a corporate job. That’s the main goal, to go to college and land a job that will allow one to support ourselves and become fully independent, if they are not already. But here he is living the dream and he’s miserable.

Not too long ago when the workforce was the Baby Boomer Generation and Generation X , happiness was not a question. One had to work whether they were miserable or not. But with Generation Y comes the grand question: “Do we want to be happy?”

Well, yes, there is a sudden need for happiness. Granted, money makes the world go round. But is it worth your sanity?

To only be 21-years-old and already tired with life is depressing. This is supposed to be the greatest years of a person’s life. But how can it be when it escalates from having to ask to go to the bathroom as a senior in high school to now, almost four years later, needing to know what one wants to do with their life?

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, mental illnesses begin to develop in people in the age range of 14-24. With the mental load of dealing with relationships, pressure from family to do well in school and the lingering feeling of thinking you’re supposed to have it together, but you really don’t, it is hard on one person. It’s almost like riding a bike on fire. Some would say it’s life and to suck it up and stop whining. But that’s not the case with Generation Y.

I think that there is a general understanding that the goal is to be something in life and to get somewhere. But there’s no stopping there. This generation wants to be happy through life as well.  It’s not all fun and games and that’s understood, but if I only get one life to live, I would not want to spend it stressed and run-down all the time. Neither does this generation.