20s, a horrifying time. I thought it would be the time of my life until I did reach that age.
20s, it’s the time we constantly ask ourselves questions like
“How am I supposed to figure out what I want to do with my life?”
“Why does everyone around me seems to figure out what they want to do?”
“How do I know if I’m making the right decisions?”
“Am I gonna die alone?”
“This is all there is?”
“What’s the point of everything?”
20s, it’s the time we left the sheltered school setting and enter the real world. A world that demands quick decision about career, relationships, finances and a lot more. A world in which the old roadmap has disappeared, the stress has gone up and we have to invent our own roadmaps. A world with overwhelmingly instability, constant change, too many choices and a panicked sense of helplessness. A world where no one will ever tell you what to do but will blame you for getting it wrong**.** A world where you can no longer make new friends in the corner of the hall and you find it extremely hard to keep a conversation going on OKcupid. A world where no one told you when to run, and oops, you missed the starting gun.
The versatile external environment, including rising living cost, mass layoff, ChatGPT and dishes left to be down in your kitchen don’t help much either.
If you feel similar, don’t worry, you’re not alone, you’re also not weird by thinking this way. You’re just going through a stage of life called “quarter life crisis” as all people in their 20s. I actually quote like this term because it suggests that I can live till about 100.
If you have known this concept, this episode will cover why this crisis is so tough and what coping mechanism you can use. If you heard it for the first time, congratulations, because you just took the first step to go through this crisis: identify and acknowledge what it is.
What
As defined by clinical psychologist Alex Fowke as "a period of insecurity, doubt and disappointment surrounding your career, relationships and financial situation". It can happen from 18 to 34, and primarily in 20s. I’ll be 25 years old next month, so I’m pretty sure I unluckily fall into this category. This is by no means a new buzzword; this is a phenomenon well-researched and discussed. UCL has published a paper in 2019 named “The Quarter-Life Crisis? Precarious Labour Market Status and Mental Health among 25 year olds in England”. Other references used in this episode include the book <Quarterlife crisis: the unique challenges in your twenties> and <How to survive the quarter life crisis>.
I don’t want to quote the facts and data from the Book the defining decade, because they make me more anxious. I think if you open this episode, if you already feel not so good in your 20s, you are very likely a person who expects a lot from your 20s and gives yourself lots of pressure, you don’t need any more pressure. One thing I can share from the book though, is “In my experience, these are the most uncertain and some of the most difficult years of life. So if you feel the same way, you’re just being a human.
Why
Adults don’t merge. They’re made. __ Kay Hymowitz
We are born not all at once, but by bits.
So, you’ve already taken the first step to go through the crisis by recognizing its existence. What’s the next step? An article on Forbes summarised the coping mechanism into an Acronym: pause.
P - Practice self-care and mindfulness
Talk to yourself on paper: i like the saying “I don’t know what I think until I write them down”. Morning pages, evening journals, sometimes you find yourself is the best therapist.
3 min breathing space meditation:
What thoughts are going through the mind?
What feelings are there?
What body sensations are here right now?
Gratitude: the 10-finger gratitude exercise, once a day you bring to mind ten things which you’re grateful for, counting them on your fingers. This helps you appreciate small things in your life, like a twinkle in zombieland.
A - Acknowledge your past.
Even though many things in school are not transferrable when we enter the real life, your stories before still show your character. They show you’re resilient in the face of difficulties, they show you’re easy-going and a good person among friends, they show you’re delegant and you have achieved something you’re proud of and you can do that again.
U - Understand you now.
“Slow down, you’re doing fine. You cannot be everything you want to be before your time.” Tackle one thing at a time. Career-wise, learn the reality of your chosen profession, not the fantasy. Relationship-wise, being single doesn’t make you half a person and there’s no time limit on finding love either. Life-wise, try to find a hobby that you do enjoy, keep experimenting until you find one.
One of the most harmful thing for our well-being is to have ridiculously high expectations. Sometimes just keeping on top of our inbox and washing our face even we know others won’t notice if we don’t, are great adulting. Sometimes being an adult means taking a day off from being an adult.
S - Stop comparing yourself with others.
When you fall into the black hole of Youtube sometimes, you will think: damn, everyone of my age is making 6 figures, is having side hustles, is behaving like 30 under 30. What am I doing? Don’t compare yourself to the lucky bastard. I love the quote “being at the perceived ‘top’ isn’t always golden, even if their feed would suggest otherwise”. Actually, the fact that they have a youtube channel is because they still feel unsatisfied with their current life, want to do something else, there’s still a hole in their life.
Another way I love to go abut this is: Whenever you feel peer pressure, ask yourself: are they really your peers? Do you really come from the same background? Same family income? Same upbringing? Do you have the same destination? Same dream? Same starting point? Same resource? If not, why do you compare yourself with people running in another playground. Just because you’re in the same classroom or the same company, doesn’t mean you’re really peers.
E - Enjoy the process.
There’s always something good you can get from your current life. Even if later on you realise you didn’t make the right decision in the first place, you can still choose again. That’s the beauty of quarter life. As said in the book <Big Magic>: The choice won’t be gone, it will be better informed.
This episode is just a beginning. My mission for this podcast is to build a community where we can ask questions, share learnings and support people who are going through quarter life crisis, myself included.
Follow the channel if you like this type of content, Thank you for spending the time with me. I’m Kitty and this is Questions in 20s. Have a good rest of your day and see you in the next episode.