quarter-life-crisis

If a frog is placed into a pot of boiling water it will immediately try to jump out; but if it__ placed into a pot of cool water that__ gradually heated until boiling, it will stay put and never try to jump out.

By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate......I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over.

The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there__ arrogance at its core. It presumes you should be successful at twenty-six, when really it takes most writers much longer to get there.

Sean looks up at her, and he wants to explain it all to her. Explain what it__ like to be rubbed so raw, to have your emotional threshold exceeded day after day, your psyche beaten so completely that you have no choice but to turn inward, shunning any and everything that__ ever brought you comfort. He wants to explain that__p until the past month or so__e__ been existing in a black hole, a mental abyss that he only recently realized he put himself in.But watching Lauren__ face__he concern in her expression, so pure and complete, considering he__ technically still a complete stranger__e realizes he doesn__ have to explain anything. She knows what it__ like. Everybody does.

For just a second, Lauren wonders if she__ going insane. But insane people don__ think they__e insane, everybody knows that. But...since that fact of insanity is common knowledge, doesn__ that mean an insane person could use it to convince themselves they__e not actually insane? Wouldn__ that make them even more insane?

Lauren realizes right then that the prospect of being single__f recent events leading to a divorce and her being a single mother with child support checks and the like__cares her to death. Dating itself is such a frightening, vulnerable time period, no matter what the circumstances. It sucks, really. She doesn__ want to go through all that again.

Walk away from every vicious act. Never look back.