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Seven years, either way
The letter ran on January 19, 2000, signed Unfulfilled in Philly. The writer had always wanted to be a physician, but had dropped out of college and now held a very good job selling pharmaceutical supplies. The heart was still in medicine, so time off went to volunteering at the local hospital, where people said the writer would have made a wonderful doctor.
Going back meant finishing a degree, getting through medical school, and completing an internship before ever practicing. That added up to seven years, and in seven years the writer would be 43. The letter ended by asking Abby what she thought.
Abby's reply was a single question. She asked how old the writer would be in seven years if the writer never went to medical school.
How did Dear Abby become an institution?
Pauline Phillips launched the column in 1956 under the pen name Abigail Van Buren, after pitching herself to the San Francisco Chronicle. Readers wrote in with everything from etiquette questions to marriage troubles, and the column spread to newspapers across the country. Her daughter Jeanne Phillips later took over the column and kept the Dear Abby name.
Why do people measure life against a timeline?
Psychologist Leon Festinger proposed in 1954 that people evaluate themselves by comparing against others when no objective standard exists. Age is an easy yardstick for this, because everyone has one and it is visible to everyone else. Milestones such as finishing school, starting a career, and settling down become the markers people check themselves against. Festinger published the idea as social comparison theory in the journal Human Relations.
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