Quarter life Crisis and How to Overcome it!
If you’re somewhere between your mid twenties and thirties, you might be experiencing a serious low point in your life. A trial of confused identity, misguided purpose, and hopeless transition. And, if you’re anything like me, you feel lost, anxious, and panicked. But you’re not alone, even if it feels that way, and there are plenty of ways to make riding it out a little easier.
The monster I’m fighting has many heads: I question whether I’m pursuing the right career, if I shouldn’t have given up on my last career, or if I’ll ever be happy with any career. I’ve had more than 10 jobs in various fields since I graduated high school, including work in IT, night security, carpentry, gold mining, retail, restaurant service, and as a professional actor.
Now, I’m a writer, and it’s great, but I still have no idea if it’s right for me or not. Over the last year and a half I’ve moved to a new city, ended a four year-long relationship, and switched apartments three more times—questioning myself every step of the way. I look in the mirror and ask, “What the hell am I doing?” “I was supposed to be a [dream profession of the week] by now…” Things haven’t shaken out the way I expected they would.
I’m desperate to hold onto the youth I feel slipping through my fingers, yet I want nothing more than the fabled stability adulthood brings. It’s a gut-wrenching feeling of fear, uncertainty, and an overwhelming desire for everything to just “be okay,” even though I don’t know what that means yet. But I do know I’m not the only one out there that feels like this. This monster is the quarter-life crisis, and it is very real for a lot of young people.
If you feel the same way I do, it helps to know why this time in your life is so turbulent in the first place. Ran Zilca, the Chief Data Science Officer at Happify and author of Ride of Your Life: a Coast-to-Coast Guide to Finding Inner Peace, suggests it all starts with how you’re treated in your late twenties and early thirties. You’re probably recently out of school, or just starting a career. Maybe you’re living alone and paying your own way for the first time, but despite your best efforts, you’re getting mixed signals from society at large. Older people consider you a “kid” and respect you as much as one. And if you’re a “millennial,” a phrase with meanings that vary depending on who uses it, you get even less respect.
It’s hard to make the smooth transition to a “real” adult when the world keeps telling you that you’re not one. It manifests into a type of “imposter syndrome” that’s hard to shake. Yet, as Zilca explains, you still feel trapped in a “pretend adulthood,” where you make commitments and try to mature, but you never reap the benefits. Eventually, you spread yourself too thin, and it all unravels.
What Psychologists Say About The Quarter-Life Crisis
According to a recent study titled Emerging adulthood, early adulthood and quarter-life crisis: Updating Erikson for the 21st Century, by Dr. Oliver Robinson at the University of Greenwich, this time in your life breaks down into five main phases:
- Phase One: You feel trapped by your life choices, like your job, relationship, or both. You’re living on “autopilot.”
- Phase Two: You get a sense of “I’ve got to get out of this” and feel a growing sense that change is possible if you just take a leap.
- Phase Three: You quit the job, end the relationship, or break the commitment that’s making you feel trapped. Then you detach and enter a “time out” period where try to rediscover who you are and who you want to be.
- Phase Four: You begin rebuilding your life slowly but surely.
- Phase Five: You develop new commitments that are more in line with your interests and aspirations.
Most people come out the other end in a better mental state, but this period of limbo can still result in a lot of pain and confusion. In fact, as Zilca notes, the average age for the onset of depression has gradually slid younger, from the late forties to the mid twenties, over the last 30 years, and psychologists think the quarter-life crisis is partially to blame.
To add insult to injury, Dr. Robinson says the dilemma tends to affect a certain type of person the most: those who try. If you’re driven to succeed, have strong ideals, and set goals you want to achieve by certain points in your life, you’re a prime candidate for the disappointment and confusion such a crisis often brings. Basically, by doing my best and shooting for the stars, I’ve set myself up to be disappointed. I’m sure many of you can relate.
What You’re Going Through Is Totally Normal
It always helps me to know that I’m not alone. And as Paul Angone, the author of All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!, says, experiencing a crisis in your late twenties is like having gas after a steak and cheese burrito—it’s practically inevitable, and you’re not the first person to feel this way.
Happy, successful people from all walks of life have experienced similar crises. Even your parents likely went through what you’re going through now. In fact, it wasn’t until I talked to my dad about his late twenties that I started to feel better. It turns out he was just as confused and stressed out at times, but he made it through okay and he’s even better now. People pretend that success or contentedness is all they’ve ever known, rarely willing to divulge their past struggles, but it’s merely a projection. Nathan Gehlert, Ph.D., a psychologist in Washington D.C. suggests it also helps to seek solidarity and talk to friends who might be feeling the same way:
The best and first thing you should do if you’re feeling stuck and unhappy is to start talking to your friends. I struggled similarly in my 20s—it helped me remember that my perception of ‘falling behind’ wasn’t really accurate.
The discussions I have with my friends usually circle around the same things: we think we know what we want out of life, but we don’t know how, and we don’t know when it will happen. Still, the fact that we can talk about it with each other makes it almost feel like a team effort; like I’m not the only lost child in a group of fine-tuned adults who’ve got it all figured out. Gehlert also recommends confiding in a mentor outside of your job—someone you can be completely honest with. Your situation is not unique, no matter how lost you feel. Countless people have made it through, and so will you.
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Staff Writer, Lifehacker.com