Twentysomething writes book to ease peers through quarterlife crisis
By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer

May 10, 2005

To the rest of the world, Jason Steinle didn't look like he was struggling with the transition from college to career.

At age 24, he had a newly minted doctor of chiropractic degree and an office as a sole practitioner in a small town outside Denver.

But in his own mind, Steinle often suffered from what he calls the "deer in the headlights" fears that he says are common among quarterlifers such as himself.

Quarterlifers are young people — late teens and twentysomethings — who are navigating the turbulent waters of early adulthood for the first time. They are faced with making decisions about college majors and career choices, about mortgages and marriages and they often find themselves in crisis mode when they feel ill-equipped to make them.

Steinle's new book, "Upload Experience: Quarterlife Solutions," released this month just in time for high school and college graduations, is his attempt to help them do that.

"Upload Experience" is categorized as a self-help book for 20-somethings, but Steinle says that term sounds "like fingernails on a chalkboard to me." He doesn't see the book as providing answers for people, but rather as encouraging them to ask the right questions.

"I thought I was the only one who didn't have it all figured out," he said. "One of my goals with ‘Upload Experience' is to help other quarterlifers realize they are not alone. It's normal to feel overwhelmed."

Steinle is a 1994 graduate of Sturgis Brown High School, and his parents are Wayne and Jan Steinle of Sturgis. His mother admits she was surprised to learn how many doubts and fears her high-achieving son had at the beginning of his career. But she wasn't at all surprised at the way he chose to handle them.

Steinle turned to older mentors for business advice, and they were generous with it.

"He was never afraid to ask adults for help or mentoring," she said. "Even as a young child or teenager, he was always good at tapping into other adults' experience."

Jan Steinle says having other adult mentors in a child's life is an important parenting tool. Her three sons have become a chiropractor, a medical doctor and a law school student.

"All of our kids have been so lucky to have really good teachers, relatives, coaches and neighbors who gave them so much of their time," she said. "It isn't just Wayne and me being their parents."

One of Jason Steinle's business-building tools as a young chiropractor was to offer evening talks on health and wellness topics at his office. Those talks led to an invitation to be a guest on a local radio talk show. That, in turn, led to an opportunity to host his own radio talk show and, eventually, a Denver-area television talk show, too.

"He's always been a self-starter, and he's always had the ability to juggle a lot of things," his mother said. She isn't surprised that he became an author, too.

The book's title is a phrase he coined after watching the "Matrix" movie. It describes the essence of the book, he said.

"‘Upload Experience' means to transfer the life skills and knowledge of another into your own life. It's what someone may casually mention to you over lunch, during a round of golf, or in the hallway that takes only 30 seconds to say, but completely transforms your life. It's not book smarts, it's experience," Steinle said.

The book is a combination of things he has learned from many successful people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and of the profound things he heard from quarterlifers when he began asking them about meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

"As quarterlifers, we don't ask each other the big questions too often. Sometimes, our conversations are no more than what's happening Saturday, or where's the next party," Steinle said.

He hopes the book stimulates discussion of bigger questions.

"I hope this book creates that cultural conversation," he said.

Steinle has always searched for life's meaning, his mother said.

"He's very spiritual," Jan said. "He always wanted to explore the big questions about why am I here and what can I do to make the world better?"

The book is divided into 30 chapters, and each asks one of the "big" questions: What is the meaning of your life? How do you discover your purpose? What should you do for a living? What is your spiritual path? How do you recognize Mr. or Ms. Right? When should you have children?

For his critics who say today's quarterlifers are facing the same adjustments to adulthood that every generation before them faced, Steinle says yes — and no.

Past generations often followed a parent into a farm, ranch or other family business. But today's economy makes that less likely, and the job market is more complex, with seemingly endless educational choices and career options.

"I think there are more opportunities today than existed in the past, when biases of gender or race may have limited people more," he said. "Quarterlifers are like a deer caught in the headlights. We have so many opportunities we freeze, because we don't know what to do."

It's not only the questions that are difficult, he said. It is also the sheer number of them.

"You're looking for the perfect career, making new friends, choosing a place to live, searching for the right partner, contemplating a family, exploring your spirituality and questioning the meaning of it all," Steinle said. "Quarterlifers put a tremendous amount of stress on themselves to have it all figured out by graduation day."

His book is a road map for those who don't, but also a reminder that quarterlife is a good time to struggle, stumble and fall.

Many of today's quarterlifers have also had the advantages of their parents' financial prosperity, and that has been a double-edged sword for them as young adults, Steinle said.

Many enjoyed a higher standard of living as children than they can expect to duplicate as young adults. "We do not necessarily have the stick-to-itness of our parents or grandparents' generations," Steinle said. "It will be interesting to see how our upbringing forms us as we move into leadership roles in society."

But they have also witnessed their parents' mid-life crises.

"Seeing that, we say, what can I do to ensure I don't have the same kind of crisis when I'm 40 or 50? We want to find a job, or a spouse or a life that fits us better from the start," he said. "I guess the take-home message from this book is that we know more than we think we do."

Four years after he became a chiropractor, Steinle is finding more of his own answers.

He is 28 now. He has a mortgage, but no wife yet. He's dating and looking forward to having a family someday.

Still, Steinle expects to keep asking the "big" questions for many years yet, and writing books about the answers he finds.

His second book, "Upload Business Experience for Quarterlife" is already in the works.

The Quarterlife Crisis

- One out of every four U.S. college students will drop out of school by their second year.

- About 1 in 5 people ages 18 to 34 do not have a high school degree.

- In 1999, the national high school drop-out rate was 10 percent.

- Between 1973 and 1999, the average hourly wage (adjusted for inflation) of high school dropouts fell 24 percent.

- 30 percent of young adults ages 18 to 24 were living below the poverty line in 2000, a rate about double that of 25- to 34-year-olds, and triple that of middle-aged adults (35 to 64).

- 26 percent of people age 25 and older have completed four years or more of college in the United States.

- More than 1,100 college students commit suicide each year.

- Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24. In 2001, 3,971 suicides were reported in this group.

- 30 percent of college students identified themselves as suffering from an anxiety disorder or depression.

- In 2002n2003, persons ages 18 to 25 had the highest rate of alcohol dependence or abuse (17.4 percent) in the nation.

- 4 million people between the ages of 25 and 34 live with a parent.

- 61 percent of college students plan to live with their parents after graduation.

- The number of people in their 20s living with their parents increased 50 percent between 1970 and 1990.

- Between the ages of 18 and 34, young adults receive an average of $38,000 in support from their parents.