“I’m having a quarter life crisis, mom,” my daughter, a Junior in college, said to me. “A what?” I replied. “A quarter life-crisis,” she affirmed. “I looked it up. It’s a thing.” Sure enough, according to Wkipedia’s definition, a quarter-life crisis is a “crisis involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one’s life” which can happen as early as age 18 and last into the 20’s. John Mayer even had a song about it, concerned the choices he was making weren’t leading to the fulfillment he expected.
It might be a quarter life crisis/ Or just the stirring in my soul/
Either way I wonder sometimes/ About the outcome/Of a still verdictless life/
Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?
John Mayer, Georgia
As I talked to her about it and considered how to respond, comparing the idea of a quarter-life crisis to a mid-life crisis, and the idea of any type of life crisis at all, it occurred to me that perhaps having this type of crisis at a young age may be a good thing. When we have a life crisis, commonly around a big birthday or life event, it gets us to question our values and our choices. Wondering if how you are living is truly in line with the values you have is a great thing. The problem, however, with any life crisis is when we focus too heavily on expectations and not values. When a crisis leads to despair, it’s often because we’re evaluating life not from our own values, but from societal expectations. Feeling like you haven’t achieved enough, made enough money, had enough success as defined by others is the root of a lot of unnecessary pain and an empty search for happiness.
In general, having a plan and meaningful expectations is a good thing. It gives us direction and purpose. However, in looking back on my life and in hearing the stories of so many people I work with, often the very best things that happen in life were not planned and we could never have predicted. If you had asked me at age 21 where my life would be now, I would never have predicted I would be living where I am, doing what I am doing, married to the man I am married to – and these are the very things that make me happy now.
A friend of mine shared a quote with me that feels so appropriate for this blog post: Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~ Paulo Coelho
Thinking about this quote helps me respond to my beloved daughter around her anxiety that she “isn’t where she thought she would be at this point” in her life. Maybe this crisis is a wonderful opportunity to learn early on that life will most often not go as you plan or expect. But along the way, she’ll find many more wonderful things she never could have even imagined! If we are too busy looking straight ahead down the road, we’ll miss the side roads that lead to beautiful places. Taking the time, whether you are at quarter-life, mid-life or later-life, to “un-become,” shedding expectations, leaves us living within our own unique values and appreciating what we have right in front or even to the side of us. Not that this shedding doesn’t come with pain, and often disappointment and anxiety, when things don’t work out as we had hoped at the time. But what leads to authentic happiness is having the resilience in staying the course of what matters most and being open to the unchartered course that may lead to an even better destination.
The more we can unbecome, the more likely it’ll be that over the long term we’ll be living life in line with our values, inoculating us from the kind of regrets that cause life despair. We won’t end up at the “wrong” place if we are taking the right journey all along the way.