The Quarter Life Crisis
We grew up listening to “The World is your oyster.”, “You can be anything you want to be!”, “Follow your heart wherever it may take you.” among a bajillion other clichés in movies, books, and TV shows (some of us, even at home). But what if my heart has no freaking clue where it wants to go? What if I want to skip the messy in-between bits and jump straight to the retirement on a vineyard somewhere in southern Italy? What if I want to be nothing and everything at the same time? We were not prepared for the giant pile of garbage that life has turned out to be at the ripe old age of 20-something.
About a year ago, I came up with a concept for a collection of zines that talk about everything that is weird and quirky about millennials, from their peculiar love for avocados to their very very real mental health problems. IDK: Generation Anxiety was the first of it’s kind, exploring some of the reasons for the soul-crushing, mind-numbing anxiety that we live with, every day. It was during the course of this research that I found out about the Quarter Life Crisis.
The quarter-life crisis affects 86% of millennials, who report being bogged down by insecurities, disappointments, loneliness, and depression. Millennials, it’s less of a question of if you will experience a quarter-life crisis than it is a question of when. (The Guardian)
And like these 19818298730912 (don’t quote me, this is definitely not accurate) other young adults, I find myself asking the same questions (sometimes even on Google) . What is life? Is it normal to not know what you’re doing with it? Why can’t I make a goddamn decision and stick to it? Do I now classify myself as a Nihilist? Though I am still struggling to answer some of these questions; upon abundant research I found that the tightness I feel in my chest every time I compare where I wanted to be in life at 23 with where life actually ended up taking me, is in fact very normal. Common even.
So what is the root of our problem, you ask? What made us this way? Why can’t we wait to turn 50 and have a regular mid-life crisis? Okay, get ready for this one, it’s a doozy. What makes this generation special is also what is killing it’s brain cells and willpower.
The infinite choices that we have at our disposal for everything from what to eat to what to be, have gotten to our brains. The more options we have to choose from, the more terrified we are of picking one lane and staying in it. The fear of missing out is very real in this generation. It doesn’t help when our peers post about their seemingly picture perfect lives on social media, that make us question every single decision we ever made. The pressure of always making the right choice, in an already financially and emotionally challenging environment can be very overwhelming.
I’m in the throes of a quarter-life crisis. A very different animal to its middle-aged cousin, mostly because no one aged 26 can afford a vintage Jag and is unlikely to have progressed far enough in their career to have a secretary to shag. The quarter-life crisis, or my experience of it, manifests itself in me wanting to run away; to start again; or bury myself in anything that will distract me from my own reality. Clinical psychologist Alex Fowke defines it as “a period of insecurity, doubt and disappointment surrounding your career, relationships and financial situation” in your 20s. Check, check, check. (Juliana Piskorz, 2018)
As if all this were not enough, research shows that the more decisions you make, the worse you’re going to be at making a sound one. This amazing phenomenon is called Decision Fatigue. The magic pill that makes ordinarily rational people make increasingly horrible decisions and kills their willpower slowly and painfully.
Think about it like this, imagine you wake up with a bucket full of brain juice and willpower, bright and early in the morning. You make multiple mundane decisions like what to wear, what to eat, the route to work and where to park, before you even start your day. These are precious drops of brain juice dripping right our of your bucket. At work, the decisions you make become increasingly complicated through the day, making a serious dent in your limited reserves of willpower and weakening your motivation. Eventually you are so tired of making decisions that you lose your ability to make a logically sound one. It’s just too much work, and you just want it to be over.
When your mental energy begins running low, you’re less able to override basic desires and more likely to go for whatever’s easiest. (Cindy Lamothe, 2019)
The marketing folks figured this out ages ago. Ever wondered why the most useless, yet most irresistible things are always near the billing counter at a retail store? Because that’s where we do all our impulse shopping after spending hours killing our brain cells and willpower in the rest of the sections at the store. I know all this sounds rather bleak, but there are a couple of easy things you could do to give your poor little brain a break when it’s feeling overworked next time and you find yourself unable to decide whether you want waffles or pancakes.
Automate some non-essential everyday decisions: No I don’t mean like Sheldon Cooper’s dice experiment. Something simple, like limiting your wardrobe or making a weekly meal plan and sticking to it.
Lock in your priorities and make the big decisions early in the day. Don’t try to do everything together.
Don’t put off making decisions, that’s called decision avoidance and it’s a bitch. Quit while you’re ahead, and start your day knowing where it’s going.
Meditate or take a cat nap to clear your head. Naps are always the answer to everything!
Hope this helps, I would love to hear your experience with these issues and how you cope with them! Hit me up.
