Coping with emerging quarter-life crisis

What you need to know:

  • Life comes at you fast at the ages of 23 -28. Newsflash, exposure isn’t a currency and no, we don’t want to have to sell ourselves, mind and body, to get to where we want.

  • The job market is flooded with overworked and underpaid staff, good luck fighting depression from the high-horse that is privilege and the “we all have 24 hours” mentality.

You’re now 25, life seems to have just started for you, but in reality, you’re two years late to the party — life started long before the pressure dawned on you. You hit the ground running when you got that new job, your career path seems clear enough for a smooth ride. You’re living within your means, it can’t be that bad when you can easily afford the life you always wanted at 21, right?

PINNACLE

A couple of months later and you realise you haven’t hit the pinnacle yet, you’re far from where you need to be and no matter how much you sing along to the phrase “trust the process” and “love yours”, the words don’t quite hit home like they should.

COMPARISON

And so it begins, quarter-life crisis. Suddenly, everyone around you is eating life with a big spoon when you barely have enough on your table. Social media facade is a reality, nobody ever posts their struggles and you know that, but look how easily you fall to the trap that is comparison.

STRUGGLES

The hunger for success creeps in, everyone says they are struggling but they hide it so well. Suddenly you don’t love your job enough or the pay is too little, you can do better and you aren’t where you need to be (and where is that anyway?) — there’s always something. Your parents have enough on their plate, you don’t want to bother them. Lord knows they stretch themselves thin for you, and if your ends don’t meet despite their selfless efforts to provide for you then guess what? Your struggles are now your personal problem.

SORROWS

You’re on your own, and that reality stings. It dawns on you every morning and if that doesn’t get you out of bed, then you may have little hope than it takes to survive the crisis.

And 25 isn’t off to a great start is it? Now you’re at the counter on a Wednesday night drowning your sorrows in your poison, the bartender keeps them coming. You feel a little better, just enough to brace the remaining two days of work. So you’re now drowning your sorrows five times a week.

GIVE UP

There’s a price for everything so how much of your soul are you willing to sell to the devil? You were raised better than that, so you struggle like everyone else. You start thinking about a side hustle. You’re a creative, you know you can make money out of your craft, but the first window of opportunity comes with a price too high and it’s not really worth it. You can feel yourself giving up. The cycle continues and that’s quarter-life crisis, for you.

EXPECTATIONS

Quarter life crisis is not talked about half as much as it should. Quite frankly, I don’t know how far being vocal about it would go but it’s here, so we can as well address it. It is characterised by the pressure to fit in and still stand out in a society that has high expectations of you with little resources to meet them.

JOB MARKET

Life comes at you fast at the ages of 23 -28. Newsflash, exposure isn’t a currency and no, we don’t want to have to sell ourselves, mind and body, to get to where we want.

The job market is flooded with overworked and underpaid staff, good luck fighting depression from the high-horse that is privilege and the “we all have 24 hours” mentality.

Ms Nnanguttu is a lawyer and writer.