Do not disturb! Quarter-life crisis in progress

Introduction

Imagine this:

You live in a small country in Europe (it doesn't really matter which one, but let's say it'll be the first one to go if the sea level rises another tiny little bit) and there is a wildly popular writer during your teenage years who 's books everyone has read. The books were basically survival guides for very lost teenagers. All fictional of course, but they always hit very close to home. You were eating those things up.

Fast forward to about ten years later and you see us all crumbling under the crushing weight of societal pressure, but guess what: Our queen is back! Once again, she is bringing us a guide for survival! Huzzah, our saviour is here. Everybody is going crazy for it, because we need this more than ever. What inevitably follows is disappointment. How could it not. The book itself is fine. Not greatly written (like this masterpiece that lies before you), but also not terrible. The disappointment lies in the fact that this book doesn't hold all the answers that we were promised. Maybe promised is the wrong word. We projected all our hope unto this book because we are in desperate need for guidance. It's not the writers fault though. How could she ever satisfy our immense need for someone to take us by the hand and tell us what to do. The need to take away all our choices and leave us with a step-by-step guide on how to live our lives.

Because some days you get up and it's all a bit too much to take. You just want to go back to bed, close your eyes and hope your problems disappear on their own. But unfortunately, at some point guilt will start whispering in your ear and your inner boomer (we all have an inner boomer, right?) tells you to drag your ass out of bed and stop being such a whiny, privileged little brat. Because who are you to feel that way? You are rich, safe and have all these opportunities that other generations never had. So, then you feel like shit for feeling like shit.

And that is exactly why I'm presenting you with this book:

A Survival Guide On How To Survive This Century As A Thirty-Something Year Old And Not Feeling Like Complete Shit For Feeling This Way And Needing This Book. A Book You Just Happened To Pick Up. You Didn't Even Know What It Was About. Maybe You Even Got It From Your Kooky Friend Annabel And You Read It With The Cover Down In The Train, Because You Don't Want People Knowing You Are Struggling Through Life. But That's Ok, There's A Chapter About That Too.

That title might be a tad too long, but you get the idea. My life as a thirty-something year old is messy and so is yours. Don't try to tell me otherwise. But fear not. I am here for you* and I will help you navigate through this confusing swamp of life-choices with this excellent (confidence is all about faking it until you make it) survival guide.

I truly hope you read the last chapter of this book deep at night, with a couple of glasses of red wine in your system and feel weirdly emotional and motivated and tell yourself you will turn your life around for real this time, because that is how I'm writing it. Bonus points if you are listening to Linkin Park's In the End.

But let's start at the beginning and try to find some answers together. I got you beautiful people!

* Is what I tell myself in the mirror every day.