Notes On The Quarter-Life Crisis

I've been feeling something very unsettling over the last year or so. I've looked into this before but wanted to share a few notes on the Quarter-Life Crisis that express what I have as of yet been unable to put into words myself:

After years of learning the system of how to succeed in school, college grads are thrown into the world of work with no real understanding of how to succeed in it.

You need to stop judging yourself by other people's standards and develop your own. [completely counter-intuitive to school]

Many drift aimlessly through these critical years because they know neither the questions to ask nor the answers they need.

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. [ouch...but true]

You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not.

You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused.

The past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.


But it is hard to realize that others are in the same boat as you. You feel very alone in this thing. I feel like I have it pretty well together at times, that I did all the right things in school to get where I am now, but I still have feelings of insecurity. It's tough.

I'm just trying to look into this whole crazy thing called life and figure it out.