BootsnAll Travel Community

a friend fwd this to me and I can actually realte with this so wanted to share this with you all

This puts it all into words perfectly. They call it the "quarter-life Crisis."
It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there
are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not
like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two,
but then get scared because you barely know where you are now. You start
realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you
thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever
met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important
ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not
really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as
you. You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would
be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to
have to start at the bottom and are scared. You miss the comforts of college,
of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then
you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find
yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you
have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is
acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry
with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused.
Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear
life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and
there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your
heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or
you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to
know better.

You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you
are doing this because you are not a bad person. One night stands and random
hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts
to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over
and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to
make a decision. You worry about loans and money and the future and making a
life for yourself and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd
just like to be a contender! What you may not realize is that everyone reading
this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying
as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

so..I would actually like to take a minute and respond to this one, because it is a discussion that comes up all the time. Believe it or not, the 1/4 life crisis is an actual thing that coms up among many people in the 20-30 age range. It has a lot to do with options, and the numerous amount of options that are out there. 10--15 years ago, people basically graduated from college and thought that the next logical step was to get a job and then get married and then make as much money as possible and save it and then maybe go on vacation once in a while. This is no longer the case..
people are still getting married and such, but a lot more people are realizing that there is a whole WOLRD out there to explore before they decide to settle down in once place.
I also think that where there was once a focus on job and career, now people (with layoff and the economy in a downturn and such..) are realizing that without a job they have much more time to explore their options and maybe really focus on what their hearts want out of life.
I have a friend who recently got laid off, and decided to move home and travel around the world. Work will always be there he surmised, but the opportunity to travel might not be..so why not do it now.
I have definitely been in the 1/4 life crisis for a bit, but have realized that there is no almight rule that says that you have to figure your life out right now. As a matter of fact, it's best to just leave yourself open to trying new thingas and in time you will narrow it down to where your heart truly lies..

"Happiness is to know when you've found it"

I was one of those people who went right into the job and career. Now I'm stopping in my tracks and thinking, hey, I should travel a bit, before even more time passes by! I think there's a time and place for everything, no correct answers. You can't force yourself to do anything if you're not in that frame of mind.

Every crisis can be seen as an opportunity, like the case of Mo's friend who was laid off. Just know that there is no correct answer, and have patience with yourself. This is just what happens in life - figuring yourself out, exploring the world and people around you. It's all good. Try and embrace the crisis. I know it's cliche and all, but every difficult period is a period of growth. Cliches are generally true.

keep the faith...

I think I have been in a quarter life crisis since graduating college with a degree I was slightly proud of obtaining (mechanical engineering), though not much interested in pursuing career wise.

Though I've probably caused myself some money issues in the mean time, I think my constant questioning and re-evaluating of my work/career (or lack there of) has what has made my upcoming trip possible. Because I knew I never was into my job(s) I didn't want to take on commitments (big apartments, new cars, etc) that would force me to stay in one place. Who knows, maybe a career will blossom out of my trip or a contact I meet there in. Stranger things have happened.

The way I figure it, if you just keep the status quo, and are continually unhappy, you are missing out on living the life you should. I ain't havin it!

PC

I hear you PhotoChick! I have been pretty much in the same boat.

I think you come out of college with this great idealistic zeal. Your ready to storm up the corporate ladder and get all of the materialistic things that go along with it.

But sooner or later the real world catches up with you and smacks you down! Its only really at this point where start to realize whats important to you.

Congrats on the ME degree....thats no small accomplishment!

Hey Kyle.

I knew from the very first second I started my first job out of college that the corporate world wasn't for me. When I walked into the training classroom for my first job, it was all these good old boy types. Ugh. I remember thinking "I have made such a big mistake..." I spent the next 1.5 yrs trying to find another job until eventually I just couldn't drag myself out of bed anymore and I just quit. But then that led to my current job, and this job is at a small company where things are more laid back. They let me have a leave of absence to travel China that in turn inspired me to take a RTW trip now. So, all things have led to a good end, or rather a great beginning.

And to add to how excited I am, my best friend just told me that she wants me to pick somewhere she can come and meet me for a week or two. It'll be great to see someone from home after having been away for 6-7 months.

PC

Hi. I got out of college, traveled all over, got a masters which affords no gainful employment, taught college, got a technology job which has high financial security, and turned down a PhD, also no stable employment. Am pushing thirty, and totally identify with the feeling of clinging to the past, and not being able to settle down. Added problem: my job is to help sick people, and after you see very ill people, the artistic vagabond existence also loses its glamour, the true plan of what one's life should be gnaws at you. Feel a bit stuck indignant at petty artistic career games, and satisfaction/boredom at being mired in family duty. It's a stupid problem, a luxurious one, but there nonetheless

My story is similiar to PC's. I have an engineering degree and worked for several big oil companies for a few years. They overpaid me but never let me have any time off. Plus, that whole 'suit' atmosphere is stifling. I was always switching jobs every 2 years but still in that big corporate life. I had to quit every 2 years so I could take my 2 month vacation!

Since 1994, I have worked for the same small engineering firm of 6 employees. My boss takes off more time than me and is always trekking up some tall mountain. He gives me 2 months vacation and more time off without pay.

I recommend for most of BnA post-ers to find a small company and check out the owners. If they are laid-back and taking great vacations then you probably will too.

right right, the neverending choices of an American in their mid-20s to mid-30s. I know it well. I feel blessed to have the choices, but recognize that I have to work a little harder to sort through them than past generations (a small price to pay for such opportunities--luxuries as Nene puts it).

My parents don't understand this reality. My Dad feels that one must sacrafice and essentially hate their job to be doing "it" right. He says a lot of this "When your mother and I were your age, we didn't blah blah..." I think that these options that are available to us (20 and 30 somethings) confound our parents as they had very few. Family planning? Shit, talk about a new concept.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed when it comes to the question of "What do I want to do with my life?" But I figure that if I keep plugging along, taking trips, getting work experience, then it will all fall into place.

fingers crossed

Casey

I can identify with you guys...kind of.
I never made it past 10th grade, a lot of shit happened, but anyway one day I wake up and I'm 25 years old! For some reason 25 just tweaked me out, I felt like I wasted most of my life away (I really didn't - I've had a great life!)and it freaked me out. I'm so over it now and am taking my GED and a TEFL coureses so I can teach English to unsuspecting foreigners while on my 1-2 year vacation. I think in my case the 1/4 thing was a blessing in disguise. It woke me up and I desided that I would take controll of my life and start living my dream. Its been almost two years, but I'm just months away from living it!

Thanx quarter-life crisis!!

Peace.

I agree with you Bear. I've been freaking out the last couple of years but I think it has taught me a bunch. I went straight to college out of high school so after I graduated I didn't know what to do with myself. All I had ever done was go to school. No, I did work to put myself through school but that's all they were, jobs to get me through school. Then when I graduated I didn't have a clue. I worked jobs that people right out of high school could get. I was pissed that my college degree wasn't helping me to get a better job as all the school counselors promised it would. So, I felt like I had to do something and I started taking pilot lessons. And what resulted was I failed for the first time in my life; I sucked at something. This of course caused a whole new freak out of how I'm wasting my life and a lot of money, so what am I going to do. But then one day I just realized I've done a lot for someone my age and who says I have to do anything. Not many people, other than bna'ers, have traveled as much as me or soloed a plane. I don't have to make big bucks, settle down, and live a life my parents want. It's all right to take things as they come as long as you take full advantage of them. So, since then I have failed at a lot of things, mostly revolving around my fear of motorized vehicles, but I've lived and learned from them. Geez, now I'm starting to feel like my parents always lecturing that they are older and wiser. I just think that this so called 1/4 life crisis is just another name for growing up. It can be kind of rough but it usually turns out. Did I mention I'm working at a stupid gas station? Works for me for now.

I am in my birthday blues at the moment and just finished off with my 42nd birthday and the quarter life crisis has become some sort of a midlife crisis.I go back in retrospect and try to analzye myself and when I do this the mind gets confusing and restless I try to ask myself ..if I have been a failure in life and could not do the things which I actually wanted to do and many atimes I feel life is just going at a very high pace and time is really so short that the very few desires and ambitions I have will go unfullfilled..( and trust me this thought is very depressing )

Like a few others, I have an engineering degree, but had the opportunity to start a business before I left University so I didn't get wrapped up in the corporate thing.

I'm getting close to my 31st birthday at the end of the week and having to start making decisions about next year already. Do I continue the semi-nomadic lifestyle I've lived for the past three years that sees me away from family and friends for about ten months of the year? Is it time to head back home and settle? Have a serious relationship? Get a real job? etc etc

At the moment, next year is looking positive, but a lot of hard work. I'll be travelling a lot, but it looks like a lot of motorways through Europe in a car rather than the backroads that I've been able to ride this year by motorbike.

Maybe it is just that I've been away for two and a half months combined with the newest birthday to add to the ever growing list...

Am I just treading water? Am I getting anywhere? Does it matter anyway?

--
Rob
http://www.robstravels.com

Giribaba doesn't sound very happy and we can't have that. Can anyone cheer her up? I've got to go to work and I'm not awake enough to think, it's 5:30am and I start at 6:00.

yep, bear. true. can't have it

girlbaba...what are these 'very few desires and ambitions that will go unfulfilled?' don't want to pry, but just wondering what type of things they are. Are they more career related? or experiential (like travelling)?

if you KNOW what you want to do, that is the first and most important step. A LOT of people don't really know what specific things they want to accomplish.

time only goes forward. we can help brainstorm a way for you to do what you really want..or at least to start getting on that path toward doing it. You gotta try. Ever hear of that phrase 'to die, trying'? think of it like being a soldier in battle. It's an honorable way to go.

Believe it or not, you do have control, at least a smidge of it.
we're with you

Rob, yes, it matters. it matters to you.

Are you treading water? maybe. depends on how you look at it. it's good to be reflective about your values, where you're going, where you've been. It's a natural thing to do this around your birthday.

I think it depends on what would make you happy, and only you can know that. Many times, it's hard to know what would make you happy. I would just go with your instinct/gut. Can't just sit back and decide from a distance what will make you happy.

not that I have my life all figured out. not in the least!

well all, I don't even begin to know how "it" all comes together, I only know what has brought me the most joy admist all of the chaos of 1/4-life "crisis" etc.; that is my relationships with friends and family.

The traveling is pretty neat, I rather love it actually, but there's something really fulfilling about seeing someone you love laugh at their birthday party or meet a goal they've strived for. Being privy and part to those moments, if I died tomorrow, I would feel accomplished.

Casey

thanx for the concern mates ,I am soo very touched and trying to get out of my blues wanting to hit the highway soon..the blues were more to do with travelling than any thing else ....I was missing the road...cheers

I turn 20 this year... my friend just had his birthday, and he realized that 20 is halfway to 40. That idea just freaks me out! It seems like once you get out of those "teen" years you have to sort of grow up and start to take things really seriously.

Basically I have to stop slacking. I don't know what to do... I mean, I have three more years of university (Bachelor of Commerce in International Business co-op), but I have to find co-op jobs, and I have to actually start thinking about post-grad. It's actually reassuring to know that some people still don't know what they want to do even though they're out of school and in their late twenties or older! I mean, I always visualized myself (and don't laugh here, kids!) walking in heels, in a grey business suit downtown in a big city with a leather briefcase. I channelled that into an ambition of eventually working in the World Trade Centre. Then the WTC collapsed, the stocks tumbled and I had to graduate high school and head off to university to decide what to do.

Do I join the foreign service? Go after corporate law? Currency trader? I know I want to take time off after school (a year at least)... but I don't even want to sign a lease right now, let alone try to figure out what I'm going to do with my future! Argh. It's quite stressful.

so, here's a question...
I'm noticing that a lot of this crisis seems to have to do with, "what am i going to do with my life?"
which seems to asked a lot in the form of
"what am i supposed to do with my life?"

I kind of am reading that a lot of people are finding a moral obligation to the world, or a higher sense of purpose, which i think is wonderful...however i also see a lot of people work themselves into a neurotic frenzy (ehhh, by a lot of people i mean me, by the way) over this concept.
I think one piece of me that i;ve learned about that i would like to pass on here, is that you I will never live up to my own expectations.
to some people that sounds pretty simple and "ok, so what about the rest of the world?"
but seriously, all those expectations that you think other people have of you, are just your own. no-one else has control over you or can tell you what to do or think and anything. so the only person you need to satisfy is yourself...
to some this opens up a whole new world of problems--trying to get to know one's self...but for me it's helped a great deal. there's no reason to do anything but what you want to do, whether or not it fufills whatever expectations you have created.
peace and blessings,
grey