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We’ve all heard of the midlife crisis, but could a quarter-life crisis be just as prevalent? An increasing number of people are feeling lost, confused, and overwhelmed in their mid-20s. What causes these feelings and how can we deal with them? Let’s find out.
Picture it. You’ve finished studying, you’ve done a little travelling and it feels like everyone around you is getting either married or pregnant.
You could probably do that too. Or should you focus on your career? Or travel more? Despite having so many options, all you seem capable of doing is sitting on the floor trying to do deep breathing because it’s all just way too overwhelming.
Enter the quarter-life crisis.
For a few years now, the quarter-life crisis has become more of a thing. A 2018 study conducted by LinkedIn showed that this period of uncertainty can begin as early as 25, up to your early 30s, and is brought about by a feeling of unease in all areas of life, from careers to relationships.
But why are young people feeling like this? Millennials and Gen-Z surely have the world at their feet.
Now what?
Pandemic aside, we’re able to travel and work abroad more easily than previous generations ever were. We’re sexually liberated and higher education is becoming more accessible. So why is it that so many of us experience this period of sheer and utter panic in our 20s and 30s?
In the same way that we frequently scroll through Netflix for half an hour and end up watching Friends again anyway, the amount of choice we’re faced with after coming to the end of our previously structured life plan is overwhelming.
When you’re at school, it’s quite often the done thing to follow the path to either higher education, an apprenticeship, a gap year, or any of the other ‘normal’ things people seem to do in their early 20s.
When all of that’s over, however, you’re left feeling like a deflated balloon asking yourself, ‘now what?’
A lot of the online content on this topic suggests that these feelings are triggered by not owning property and not having a career or a relationship. But there’s so much more to a quarter-life crisis than that.
Therapist De-Andrea Blaylock-Solar pinpoints one of the key stages as feeling an urgent need for change. She explains; ‘It’s this need for change but not knowing what that change needs to look like in order to be fulfilled.’
