The Quarter Life Crisis

This is the time in your life when you realize that however much you hate it, change is the only constant in life and that things rarely go according to plan. You start realizing that there are many things you thought you would have achieved by this time, but now they seem a distant dream or not even a possibility.

You start feeling insecure and confused about your goals and wonder what you will have achieved in a year or five years time, since you haven’t managed to achieve what you had set out for yourself, and now you’re frightened to set more goals and not achieve them once again.

You start realizing that life is short and that people are important, and somehow you always treated the ones who were difficult better than the ones who always stood by you. You realize that people can be selfish and that the only person who really cares about you and looks out for your interests is yourself and expecting anyone else to do it is just setting yourself up for more disappointment.

You’ve reached a phase in your life where you’ve been through a number of relationships and you now know what you want and don’t want in a relationship, where you are willing to compromise and what you are not willing to budge on.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved with every ounce of your being could hurt you so much. You wonder why you go from one destructive relationship to another, constantly searching for that elusive something. Or you lie in bed at night and wonder where all the decent people are hiding because you can’t seem to find anyone that you want to get to know better. Or on the off chance that you do meet someone interesting, they are already taken.

You are now much more confident as a person. You have learnt to take things with a pinch of salt. You laugh and cry with more feeling than you ever did before. Each experience in your life is etched deeply in your mind and impacts the way you think and how you interact with people. You are more careful and less trusting of others. You try hard not to become cold, jaded and cynical.

You begin to judge people more than you did earlier in your life. You are constantly observing other people and renewing the boundaries in your life, adding things to the list of what is acceptable and what is definitely not.

You have a smaller close knit group of friends who form your support system. You talk to your friends about the same things again and again- work, family, higher education, men/women in your life and analyse the same problems again and again searching for solutions, hoping that you will have the courage to make tough decisions and follow through with them.

You stop going along with the crowd and realize that you don’t need to try so hard to fit in. Getting completely wasted and acting like an immature idiot loses its charm. You undergo some self realization and some of the things you’ve discovered about yourself are not entirely pleasant.

You worry more about your family and the health of your loved ones. You take on more responsibility and try to help out with daily chores and financial obligations.

You worry about loans, money, marriage and making a life for yourself. And while achieving all your goals would be nice, you would settle for at least a definite path to your goals with a blue print of all the potholes or at least a way to get around them.

You feel alone, scared, anxious, excited, worried, and happy all at the same time. One minute you wouldn’t want to change anything for the world and the next minute you wonder how you got stuck in this rut.

You know you’ve never felt so alive or so frightened in your entire life. You feel like you are standing at the edge of a cliff and the only way to move forward is to jump and pray the parachute holds.

What you don’t realize is that everyone in this age group is going through something similar and would be able to relate to the gamut of emotions that you are facing. So relax and try to enjoy yourself. Think of it like a roller coaster ride, where you’re poised on top, waiting for it to begin, you know its going to be fun , though scary in some parts and exhilarating in others. So what you need to do is embrace it instead of trying to fight it!

And when you feel lost and lonely next time, remember we are all searching for our place in the world and as we stumble along in search of happiness, there is always company and it’s not going to be a long lonely ride.

I wish you all the very Best of luck ! :-)