Don’t worry, you don’t always have to wait until midlife to have a crisis. You can have one at 25, or 26 (my current age), or 20, or 30, or at any other time. That’s the great thing about life: crises can happen at any time!
The crisis might happen suddenly, like a brusque slap in the face, or the crisis might happen more subtly, slowly enveloping you like quicksand until you find you can’t move your legs and only upon looking down do you realize you’re up to your waist and largely immobilized. Hope you have a friend in earshot to save you.
For me, the quarter life crisis was a slow creeper. At the start, I would on relatively infrequent occasion look in the mirror while I was brushing my teeth in the morning and wonder why I did it. Things then grew from there. With time, the questions became more frequent, numerous, and intrusive.
I started regularly questioning my whole routine. I would wonder not only why I woke up every day and brushed my teeth but also why I flossed and used mouthwash and showered and got dressed and ate breakfast and got in my car and drove to work and came home and ate dinner and went to bed and then did it all over again the next day.
Obviously, I determined that many of the above items were required for continued existence: hygiene is essential for good health, a job is required to pay the bills, and eating is required to not die. In that light, the meaning behind my daily routine seemed obvious, but when I began to extrapolate further, things fell apart pretty quickly.
I began wonder what the ultimate goal of doing those things was, what the ultimate goal of brushing my teeth and having a job and living my life was. I began to wonder what the meaning of my life was in general. The continual questioning of my existence eventually culminated in an (ongoing) existential crisis. I looked down and found myself up to the waist in quicksand.
I thought about the meaning of my life extensively before determining that there wasn’t one, at least from an objective and macroscopic perspective. I realized that I was merely an inhabitant on a tiny speck of dust floating around another speck of dust of which there are billions upon billions, and that I would exist for a tiny fraction of time, after which I would die.
I realized that sometime after I died, everybody would forget about me (or they too would die taking the memory of me with them). If I was one of the very lucky few, I might appear in history books to be the subject of reports and essays that future students would be burdened with and begrudgingly complete (or plagiarize). Otherwise, it would largely be as if I had never existed. I then thought about my great, great, great grandparents. Does anyone in my family even know their names? Probably not.
Most of you have probably heard this before and can see where I’m going with it. Further, many of you have solved this problem for yourselves and that’s good for you. Nevertheless, I will carry on.
From my observations, some people never find themselves faced with the questions that I ask myself, and that’s totally cool. In fact, some people seem to waltz through life without ever questioning anything, which is usually fine, but sometimes is not (topic for another discussion).
As evident from my numerous internet searches, many people do in fact experience an existential crisis similar to the way I’ve experienced mine, and there appears to be several different ways of handling it.
One obvious and prevalent way of handling an existential crisis involves finding God. For some, they believe if they live their lives well and do good (according to God), they will be rewarded with everlasting happiness (ex. heaven in Christianity).
In my opinion, finding God is a great solution for an existential crisis: your life’s meaning is to follow certain guidelines with the expectation of being rewarded at death. Your life is the means to an end: everlasting happiness.
The reason I think finding God is a great solution to an existential crisis is simple: if the reward (heaven) is real, you live your life with meaning and exist blissfully thereafter. If the reward isn’t real (i.e. there is no afterlife), you’re spared the heartache of ever finding that out because you’ll be dead. It really is a win either way.
Unfortunately, the finding God path isn’t a good fit for me. I have found that my logical thinking style and tendency question things that don’t make sense to me create a substantial incompatibility with many religious beliefs/practices. I want to point out that this is certainly not to say I think down on religion or those who believe or practice, merely that the finding God approach is incompatible with my core personality traits.
Another strategy for handling an existential crisis is the “do whatever I want and make myself happy” strategy. This strategy is employed by the lucky group of people who are able take their realization that life is meaningless and use it as inspiration: “if life is meaningless then I can do whatever makes me happy and not care about anything else!”
The “do whatever I want and make myself happy” strategy works well for people who find satisfaction/entertainment/value in things or activities that exist in our material world. Examples of such activities include watching Netflix, talking to friends, playing video games, playing sports, going for a walk, playing with a dog, fishing, kayaking, taking Instagram photos, etc.
I think the “do whatever I want and make myself happy” strategy can actually be summed up in one word: distraction. These people are essentially able to distract themselves from the crisis, and eventually it dies out. There is a small chance that those who are happily distracted would care that their lives were meaningless.
Unfortunately, the “do whatever I want and make myself happy” strategy isn’t a good fit for me either. You see, the things I find satisfaction/entertainment/value in are things that I think have meaning. I’m guessing you can see the issue there.
Taking a step back, I have tried valiantly to distract myself. I have tried valiantly to find satisfaction/entertainment/value in things/activities but I just can’t seem to do it. The issue is things just get old so quickly. I don’t really care to watch Netflix, I like to go fishing but eventually that gets old, I like to hang out with friends/family, but that can wear on my patience after a while, and I like to play sports but eventually that becomes routine. You see the pattern here.
I know what some of you will say: you have a boring life and you need to try new things! My response to that is: I graduated from a prestigious school with a master’s degree in chemical engineering, I restored a 1950’s era wooden boat and motor, I successfully developed an IOS app, I successfully developed a desktop app, I have a YouTube channel, I travel fairly regularly, I run my own website, I have a full time job where I work on economically and societally impactful projects (sometimes 4-5 simultaneously), I hit the gym three or more times per week and am in very good physical shape. What more am I supposed to do? It’s not like I just sit on my ass all day and do nothing.
I also know what some of you others will say, get married and have kids! That will provide your life with meaning! My response to that is no way Jose. I can’t see how that would solve any of my problems. The last thing I need is to have a wife and kids take care of on top of an ongoing existential crisis. Other people don’t solve your problems, you do.
Delving deeper into the subject, I always find it fascinating when people are congratulated for getting married and/or having kids. Like nicely done, you accomplished something that the majority of other people have also accomplished. The world isn’t what it was a million years ago, you don’t have to fight off saber-toothed tigers, you don’t have to kill prey with your bare hands, and you (hopefully) don’t have to battle other males for right to paternity. Just check the population curve. It’s like congratulating someone for going to the grocery store.
The one thing that still mystifies me is why did I just now start asking these questions and having this issue? After all, I have known for quite some time that I’m nothing more than a speck of dust on a speck of dust and that shortly after I die it’ll pretty much be as if I had never existed. Why has it now become an issue? I’ve grappled with this and devised a theory, though I can’t be sure it’s sound.
Prior to this point in my life things were scripted, predictable, regimented, and discretized. For pretty much my entire existence prior to now, I advanced through relatively short stages. A school year can be viewed as a stage; high school in its entirety can be viewed as a stage, as can college and grad school.
During these stages, I would look forward to the end: summer vacation, graduation, etc. Summer vacation and graduation were metaphorical lights at the end of a tunnel, rewards that kept me trudging unquestioningly onward. Completing each stage was like cranking notches on a belt or leveling up in a video game. My life’s meaning was to advance to the next stage by “doing well” at the current stage. It was a distraction.
I think the issue is that this current stage of my life is the longest, and the light at the end of the tunnel is retirement/death. This is it. I can no longer keep my eye on the prize, I can no longer live to level up, and I no longer have a reward to reap. I have to live in the now. There is no ending anymore and coping with that fact is challenging. I have no distractions and am more or less at a loss.
Before closing, I want to make it clear that I am not unhappy. My existential crisis and feelings toward my life are not sad. Of course, they also aren’t happy. In fact, they’re actually nothing at all. You see, my life is like a grain of sand on the beach; it’s hardly different from the rest, its existence is only felt by those close to it, and its identity is only distinguished upon very close inspection.
My grain of sand might be swept up into the sky by the wind, or washed away by the ocean tide, or be made into a sand castle, or find its way into someone’s swimsuit bottom and annoy the shit out of them. The thing to realize here is that the existence of this grain of sand isn’t happy, and it isn’t sad. It just objectively is.
P.S. For those of you who like to tell others what to do, I do not need to “get help/talk to someone/see a therapist.” I am fully capable of acknowledging, accepting, and processing the above without engaging in behavior that is harmful to myself or others. Thank you for your concern.
