Published 28 February 2009 · Main Posts How are you feeling today? Rjurik Davidson I received an email yesterday, promoting a particular book (Kasey Edward’s Thirty Something and Over It, if you’re interested), which contained the following happy statistics: – 98 per cent of people are unhappy in their jobs – 26 per cent of women at the cusp of the most senior levels of management don’t want the promotion. – One in 15 under-35s have already dropped out of paid work to pursue ‘self-improvement’, and half plan to do so in the near future – Dr. Carson-Webb, who specializes in life-cycle dilemmas, said nearly 20 percent of her clients are facing a thirtysomething crisis, or thrisis, suffering from anxiety, depression and burnout. – Larry Wentworth, a licensed clinical social worker who has his own psychotherapy practice in Chattanooga, said a thrisis is very different than a mid-life crisis. Rather than looking back on their lives and acting out with affairs, new sports cars and toupees, disenchanted thirty-somethings are looking ahead and worried about what will happen with the rest of their life. – Gladeana McMahon, co-director of the Centre for Stress Management, knows the phenomenon only too well. “I work with a lot of highly successful, driven people,” she says. “By their mid-thirties, a lot of them are tired. They’re sick of life and they wonder what it’s all about. They start questioning their values and what they’re doing.” I guess the statistics didn’t surprise me too much, at heart. But it did make me wonder: how do people keep going? Are the temporary fix’s, the quick magic pills, of cheap television, two cars in the driveway and cartons of beer enough to keep people steady? Why is there not more expression of this disenchantment? Rjurik Davidson Rjurik Davidson is a writer, editor and speaker. Rjurik’s novel, The Stars Askew was released in 2016. Rjurik is a former associate editor of Overland magazine. He can be found at rjurik.com and tweets as @rjurikdavidson. More by Rjurik Davidson › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 28 March 202428 March 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. First published in Overland Issue 228 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.