Over 30 and underwhelmed? Then you're having a 'Thrisis' ...
Edel Coffey meets the high-flying executive who willingly downsized in pursuit of a happier state of mind
Tuesday April 14 2009
What happens when you wake up and don't want to go to work . . . ever again? Most of us have had that feeling at one point in our lives, but, after a brief moment spent fantasising about winning the lotto, we usually just get on with the job. But when 30-something workaholic Kasey Edwards found she had the Monday morning blues every day of the week, she knew something was wrong.
Edwards was a high-flying over-achieving management consultant who had ticked all the relevant boxes in her life. She earned more money from her bonuses than most people did in a year, she had a great boyfriend and a life filled with the kind of consumerist assets most people dream of. But somehow she was "totally over it" and at a loss as to what to do about it.
And she's not alone. A new survey published by Elle magazine shows 70pc of 30-year-old women are putting their relationships and personal lives ahead of their careers.
Edwards dubbed her experience a "Thrisis", a 30-something crisis. Edwards describes a Thrisis as a "misalignment between how you live your life and what you want to be doing". It's the feeling you get when you wake up one day in your thirties, tired and over-worked and wondering "where's the pay-off?"
"All through your teens and 20s you're working towards something and there's this sense of delayed gratification -- I'll work hard now and I'll get into university and I'll work at Uni and I'll get a job and I'll work at this job and get a better job and you get to your 30s and you go, where's the pay-off? The gratification that you've been expecting for years doesn't come or when the reward comes it's not satisfying. I really did think, is this all there is?"
Edwards came to the conclusion that she was looking for a more "meaningful" life, but it took a lot of soul-searching to get to that point.
"I became quite dysfunctional, moody, drinking a lot, attitude problem at work" says the petite Australian. "Initially I thought if I just didn't have to work again then I'd be happy. If I won the lottery or could bring myself to marry for money," she laughs, "then I'd be happy."
But a chat with a depressed millionaire suffering from his own Thrisis put paid to that theory.
Edwards' problem was that she felt she should be satisfied with her privileged job and lifestyle and then felt guilty for not being happy. "I think that's even more relevant in a financial crisis. People have said to me 'I feel even more guilty than I did before because at least I have a job, but I still don't like it.'
People say, there's other people who have it much harder, but I realised that it wasn't helpful to feel bad about feeling bad and just because other people in the world don't have the opportunity to search for a more meaningful existence wasn't a reason why I shouldn't."
A major turning point was lowering her expectations. "I really did have a dysfunctional relationship with work. It was like I had a bad boyfriend because I kept giving so much of myself to it and I was expecting things back that it could never give me."
Having sought answers from everyone from her gynaecologist to a puppy, Edwards went on a gruelling 10-day silent meditation course (no eating after noon; sitting on hard floors for 16 hours a day) and finally figured out her crisis.
"The process is actually to reflect on who you are, whether you like what you find or not, and make your decisions on what you really want rather than on what you think you should do."
She negotiated a three-day week, took a massive pay cut, wrote her first book in the time she had gained back, and married her boyfriend Chris. They now live together in Melbourne.
She is reluctant to call her book "self-help" but admits it could be interpreted as such. "The big difference -- and this doesn't help with selling it, I'm sure -- is I'm not promising a simple solution to a problem. Solving your Thrisis is complex; it takes time and it's a personal thing as well -- there isn't one answer. I'm hoping that my book is more realistic."
30 Something and Over It by Kasey Edwards is published by Mainstream Publishing, £6.99
