If you are a person from the age 20 to 30 then you might have experienced this once in your life atleast or maybe experiencing right now, QUARTER LIFE CRISIS. It is almost similar to mid life crisis, here we are intensely searching the purpose of our life with our friends moving abroad, having good career opportunities or getting married and having children; we feel like we are failing behind. How do I feel like I am in the right track? How do I feel like moving forward in life? It seems like adolesence is not yet over and the world is asking us to be adults. We have some common stress points which drag us to feeling invalid for some it can be career, for some its more personal relationships or some its money or bills, mostly it will be loneliness and alot of question marks about us and our lives. Some people feel stuck in life, and making decisions seem quiet difficult, its like an interviewer sitting infront of you and asking “where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Well in this case, we are asking this question to ourselves, what is my future long term goal(s)? There is a lot of anxiety and tension involved in this phase and even though those highly recommended selfhelp books give you a momentary relief its not helping you permanently. A tub of Ice cream , or a huge piece of cake, or many packets of your panic food is not helping you find a permanent solution, and ofcourse it will not.
This is a phase where we can either feel that we are doing so many things but nothing relevant or pleasing to ourselves, we are not satisfied , or we are not doing what is necessary , because we are confused about WHAT IS NECESSARY FOR ME? Well, our concern is genuine but going into a mental crisis is not the solution as we all know. But decoding what you are going through might be not that easy, because I too discovered it accidentally. It is freaking me out watching all my friends buying cars, going abroad, or marrying and having children but that is not helping me and hence I decided to do some research on what I am going through and Ta — da I found “ Quarter Life Crisis” as fancy as the word sounds its not so great to be in my shoes feeling it. So I also need a remedy and many like me does need a remedy so here we are to ponder and ponder until we are satisified with a proper solution.
First of all we are quiet young and this is the time we need to have fun. We have to take things lightly and know that this time wasted will never come back. Our twenties are precious and we need to protect our sanity during these challenging times when we are worried about the rat race of the world. Sure, there are a lot of people who are ahead of us and also who are behind us, but does we have to compare? Maybe thats how we were taught, even if we get good marks everyone wants to know how much our friends got or who performed well in that particular test, this completely takes away all our happiness and fun. We need to only care about our performance, and I am damn sure social media is not helping us in our mission to stay happy. With the emergence of various forms of media man have more options to ponder into the lives of their neighbours or peers, things are not anymore just looking at your neighbour through the window or fence, now its more deep because everything is in social media- from the food we take, dress we wear, degrees we take or the car we buy to the vacation we take and even the news of marriage and kids. Competition is huge, because we feel the need to outperform others or atleast be equal to others. There are alot of emotions that we have to tackle in this scenario on a day to day life, sorrows, worries, jealousy, anger, uncertainity, low selfesteem, low satisfaction and unhappiness. This is when we keep asking, “what is the purpose of my existence?” We might also be terrified of taking charge of our lives. A lack of motivation, faitgue or stress, anxiety or depression,fear, low self confidence are all the outcomes of quarter life crisis.
Multiple things can trigger quarter life crisis, but mostly it is some kind of identity crisis where you are unsure of your life and choices. Major triggers would be ;
Insecurity — in both personal and professional front, uncertainity, breakup, other relationship issues,loneliness, instability — financially or otherwise, graduating college without plans,commitments etc
So what can we do to feel better..about ourselves and our lives? A few things I started doing to feel fruitful are;
1.Working on my physical health — a good diet, and regular exercise.
2.Mental health and emotional wellbeing — learning to love myself and taking a confidence journey where I learn to respect myself and give myself more credit for whatever I am. And in beleieving that as humans we are ever evolving and growth happens !
3.Listening to positive audios and motivational videos to boost my mood.
4.Acknowledging my mood swings and being in sync with it.
5.Making room for my hobbies — painting, writing, reading etc
6.Trying to feel happy for others more than feeling sad about myself. Always appreciate people on their achievements.
7.Whenever I worry about being a low achiever or whenever I feel so disatistified with myself, I keep thinking about the journey, how I reached where I am now.
8.Joining for courses that will help me career-wise. Some effort from our end counts, we have to put in effort.
9.Smiling and letting loose. Having control over my anger.
10.Having positive alone time, where I can pause and reflect on myself.
11.Listening to good music.
12.Walking everyday to and fro from office, an exercise also clears mind.
13.Constantly mentioning that I love and appreciate the people in my life. We all deserve to be appreciated and known that we are loved. Giving back a little❤️
14.Listening to others, even their problems. Helping them find some peace. No it is not filling yourself with negativity, its a perspetive, I see it as sharing my positivity with someone who is down.
15.Saying “thank you” for every small thing someone does for me even when received with updates.
16.Being grateful to have this life.
17.I also write down on a piece of paper my positives and improvement points. So when I am down I go read at what all things I am good and that boosts my confidence level.
18.I also dress up well and make myself presentable. I find that as a way of selfcare!
19.Challenging myself a little with changes.
20.Taking a trip.
What are the things that you do to feel positive? Quarter life crisis is nothing that we cannot tackle! One step at a time….
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