This article uses two opposing concepts of time to articulate the tensions that are common among the working-age urban population of today’s post-industrial societies and their solutions at the individual level. The importance of the time dimension for the analysis of today’s people’s lives is revealed through the analysis of sociological studies of the concepts of fast and slow time and the results of a qualitative study which includ­ed interviews with 18 people who linked their changes in life to different regimes of time. For some people who live in fast-time mode, turning back to slow time becomes an essential principle for achieving significant existential changes that lead to a subjectively more meaningful, qualitative, freer, and more authentic life.

In today’s post-industrial societies, young people, compared to previous generations, experience longer and more complex processes of creating professional identity, developing a career or finding “one’s vocation”. They also face difficulties in achieving financial independence, starting a family, and leaving parental homes, which altogether define the status of an adult person. Based on the overview of sociological and psychological scholarly literature, the complexity of young people’s identity formation in the context of a passage towards social maturity is analysed. The most significant tensions related to the question of “who am I and what do I want” are emphasized in the article, together with the circumstances of contemporary society that stimulate them. (Non-)applicability of the concept of the quarter-life crisis is finally highlighted in order to summarise, reflect, and explain some of the experiences and life events of young people. The title of the article is a famous quotation of Tennessee Williams.