A mid-life crisis is defined as being a life crisis that happens between the ages of 40–50 and a quarter life crisis is aged 20–30. So whats the one for the teen years? Because we sure need one.
There are millions of teens across the world who will be at the same stage as me. On the brink of what feels like a nervous breakdown brought on by this foreboding feeling of life after school because you have zero idea of what in the world you want to do. Or you do know but you have zero idea on how to get there. Personally I have zero idea what I want to do and the fact that school coming to an end is making it worse.
It seems like everyone around me whether at school or my personal circle know where they’re going in life. They know what they want to do and know what to do to get there. Others have all ready achieved “success” at my age or even younger. The same thing is all over social media as well, everyone has this (amazing) driven mentality of working hard and a sense of purpose. It seems like everyone and their mum has a business or has perfected they’re personal brand all ready. I’ve grown up watching youtubers the same age as me who have all ready started their professional careers and are doing amazing things, achieving dreams that they had talked about since they were younger. Now, this may sound bitter but honestly I’m not trying to be, I am so happy for everyone (because remember guys, putting positive thoughts in the universe means you’ll get them back) but I’m just frustrated. When’s this going to happen for me?
These day’s there’s so many more ways to have a career and the number of things that you can do has grown exponentially. Yet I still cant find anything. Most of the advice I get is make your passion into a career but what if you have a million “passions”. I like so many things from videography to writing to coding to yoga. Could I make careers out of these? Yes I could, but at the same time it’s like how? and what if I stop liking it?
For example tech, I love technology. I think it’s just amazing and it’s such a broad industry with a million things constantly going on and innovation is being tested everyday. I taught myself to code and just threw myself into the tech community in the UK. I even went as far as starting my own start-up, (@yohniesapp on twitter), which is essentially Linkedin meets tumblr for creatives. It’s currently at beta stage but I’m sooooooo tired of the tech/start-up world. Everyone is the same. Everything is the same. It’s the same narratives constantly, F**k You Start-up World sums this up perfectly. I am incredibly passionate about yohnies and what I want to do. I honestly just want to create a positive online space for young creatives to thrive. I want to eventually move this into real life creating real life spaces for young creatives to just do their thing. But do I really want this for the rest of my life?
I think all of that is the root of my stress. School is coming to an end, everyone around me knows what they’re doing and I’m just there teeming with anxiety. I wont have my regimented life that I’ve loved/hated for the past 13 years of my life. I’ll be thrown into the “real world” and expected to just know what I’m doing and go with it and do well.
I’m scared of failure. I’m scared of reaching 50 years old and looking back on my and being dissatisfied. Whatever I end up doing I just want it to be happy, fulfilling and have a positive impact on people and the world. Hopefully this sense of impending doom disappears at some point and I’ll figure everything out. Till then, I guess it’s just chilling and trying to stay sane.
Edited end note: if you’ve got any advice pls hit me up, it would be much appreciated xx
