In Defense of the Quarter Life Crisis
Hear me out guys…
I feel like the world doesn’t take the quarter life crisis seriously enough. They’re definitely more important than mid-life crises.
I mean, sure, as twenty year olds we don’t have the impending doom of death looming over us, but we have to worry about if we want a tea, coffee or smoothie on the way to class in the morning. And it is a big decision people. HUGE.
Also the quarter life crisis happens when you’re like 22 (aka NOW) and you are pretty much unemployed or your job pays so little you’re basically unemployed. Anyways, it sucks. You also have these people called parents who are always up your butt about everything. Like, what do you want to do with your life? Have you called your grandparents? You should email so and so and ask her for a job at so and so place…
When you’re going through your mid-life crisis your parents are dead and you don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. Seriously.
Also going through the quarter life crisis is super tough because you have the majority of your life ahead of you and it’s super daunting. Like what if I don’t make the right post-grad decision? What if I chose to eat lunch at this place rather than that place? Should I move to LA or stay in New York?
The options are limitless which gives all of us anxiety.
Which is why most of us are booking it to Thailand or Copenhagen to work at youth hostels and ride on the backs of elephants. So much of our life is ahead of us we’re afraid that one day we’ll eventually get sucked into a boring job we hate, like our parents, and we won’t have the urge to ride on the backs of elephants anymore.
During your midlife crisis, most adults have lived. They talk about doing blow with Bon Jovi or Robert Downey Jr. My parents talk about how they almost were stranded in the country of Zimbabwe because they didn’t have their passports or something. The point is they lived.
And in our twenties, all us millennials are afraid not to have lived. Which is causing us to freak out.
There’s also this paradox where we want to be the person we’re supposed to become already. I mean, I’m not trying to wish away my life or anything but come on I’m ready for my Primetime Emmy and I’m ready for it now!
And then every time there’s an interview with a famous actor or actress they always say if they could talk to their younger selves now they’d say, “Everything will work out, it will all be okay in the end.” But if time machines really existed and said actor or actress went back in time and actually told their younger self this, their younger versions would not work as hard as they did to get where their present self is today!
Right now, in the present, we all would love to think that “It’ll all work out,” but sadly life isn’t that way, it won’t just work itself out. So now at a very young age, going through this quarter life crisis about if my life will eventually “work out.”
But I mean c’mon. It makes sense. During a midlife crisis someone is dealing with like debt, kids and unhappy marriages. During the quarter life crisis we’re trying not to make those mistakes and then on top of that we have student looooans.
And that’s my argument. Now, I’m going to eat a donut and watch TV on my parents’ sofa in the house that they pay for as they go through midlife crises of their own.
