"The Referendum is a phenomenon typical of (but not limited to) midlife,
whereby people, increasingly aware of the finiteness of their time in
the world, the limitations placed on them by their choices so far, and
the narrowing options remaining to them, start judging their peers’
differing choices with reactions ranging from envy to contempt. The
Referendum can subtly poison formerly close and uncomplicated
relationships, creating tensions between the married and the single, the
childless and parents, careerists and the stay-at-home. It’s
exacerbated by the far greater diversity of options available to us now
than a few decades ago, when everyone had to follow the same drill.
We’re all anxiously sizing up how everyone else’s decisions have worked
out to reassure ourselves that our own are vindicated — that we are, in
some sense, winning."
...
"Yes: the Referendum gets unattractively self-righteous and judgmental. Quite a lot of what passes itself off as a dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others’ as selfish or pathological or wrong. So it’s easy to overlook that hidden beneath all this smug certainty is a poignant insecurity, and the naked 3 A.M. terror of regret."
...
"Yes: the Referendum gets unattractively self-righteous and judgmental. Quite a lot of what passes itself off as a dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others’ as selfish or pathological or wrong. So it’s easy to overlook that hidden beneath all this smug certainty is a poignant insecurity, and the naked 3 A.M. terror of regret."
The New York Times Opinionator: The Referendum
There you go, finally a word for that thing I've been feeling.
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