My Quarter Life Crisis  I watched this video from Dr. K and I feel like I related to some parts of it but not necessarily the intensity of it. I do feel like my 20s are a transformative time and I'm exploring myself and questions I have regarding what I want to do with my life. That said, it doesn't necessarily feel like a crisis, but I guess it's because I've been at a state of existential crisis for varying issues and topics from when I was 10.  Stage 1: Locked In  Dr. K talks about how quarter life crises have stages and how the advice in one stage may or may not be applicable depending on where you're at in this process. He goes off of studies on quarter life crises over the last 10 years as well as delve into his personal life experiences in this video. In the first stage of being "Locked In", Dr. K talks about how for many people, they have been told to live life in a certain type of way that isn't entirely authentic to them due to external validation. As a result of the incongruency of what is happening internally and what life is like externally, people start to feel stuck in life. This can especially happen to people who have been working towards something in life that wasn't super authentic to themselves, only to spend so many years doing it to where they feel stuck in their position. The example he uses is the process of becoming a doctor where you spend all these years studying and practicing being a doctor, which you may or may not enjoy, but that is not the same as the day to day of being a doctor. As a result, maybe you fit well through med school but once you become a doctor, the internal and external life aren't in congruence anymore. Or maybe, the case is that you realize that this isn't what you want to do but then you feel like since you have put so many years of dedication to it that you're like *wtf else am I supposed to do!??!* Then you start questioning your identity, your path, and next thing you know you're in an existential crisis.  The research about the stages cites the following:  Dr. K also emphasizes exploring yourself and actively creating the life you want for yourself over finding yourself and finding the right career. This is an emphasis of process over the product. Sure, at the end of the quarter life crisis, you might not have solid answers as to what you should be doing,  but if you go through the crisis correctly, the *should* aspect of having a definitive answer becomes a nonissue.  Rather, you become more sure of yourself and your ability to actively craft the life around you instead of finding a neat box to fit into.  I can relate to the stage of being locked in to a certain extent. I feel like the monotony of my office life and the notion that it's a good idea to work here a couple more years despite the fact that I don't really like it does leave me feeling a little stuck. I do relate to how in the video people wake up in their 20s and are like *is this my life now?!?!* and how there is a lack of congruency between the adulthood we were promised, the one where we have the freedom to do what we want, and the adulthood we have where while we aren't restricted by parents and teachers telling us what to do, instead we are restricted by our responsibilities towards our family, friends, job, health etc. In my opinion, younger people are having this crisis now rather than in their mid life because of how bad things have gotten with late stage capitalism exaserbating these issues to where you can't ignore it until your 40s. I wrote a whole post earlier about feeling 17 and how my expectations of adulthood doesn't really fit in with my reality due to the world changing so much since 2017.    However, I don't feel completely locked in.  I feel like from my early teens I have done a good job at pushing back against the *shoulds* of society relating to what my parents wanted me to do for my career, or the notion that the formula for happiness is going to college, working in a cubicle job for 40 years, somewhere along the way buy a house and raise a family, and then eventually retire. I think I did a really good job in choosing what I should study in college. It helped me get a stable job while still honoring my interests. Growing up, I had the gift of being an incredbily intrinsically motivated person to where it was sometimes hard for me to respect authority simply because the things they said didn't add up and I was in exitential crisis mode all the time since the typical things that externally motivated kids didn't really stick with me. I also chose my field of study knowing that people can change a lot over the years and that I shouldn't commit to a path at 18 since I'm so young and I have so much more figuring out to do. I double majored in Managment and International Relations with a minor in Human Rights. All of these degrees are flexible enough to where I can have the freedom to get into various industries due to the types of skills you develop in these disciplines. And my business degree is much like an engineering degree to where I can take on a reasonably paying job right after college without having the same pressure to have to get a masters or some kind of graduate school like my peers who only majored in a liberal arts degree or medicine. I think the other reason why I don't feel completely locked in is because I consciously chose the boring corporate job I have right now. I knew as I was exiting college in this chaotic time that the best thing I can do financially and for my mental health is to get a boring corporate job with prospect, decent pay, and work life balance, so that I have some sort of stability and financial safety net to figure out what I REALLY wanted to do. Despite the existential dread this job can bring, I feel like I can think more clearly in terms of what can bring me fulfillment and what direction I want to go when I'm not actively worried about bills, moving out of my family's chaotic environment, and the prospects I have after graduation. Sure, I still have challenges related to survival, but my mind is so much clearer because I can think about what I want to do rather than what I need  to do. I'm not as clouded by survival as I was 2 years ago when I was studying abroad and feeling incredibly apprehensive about my future because I have more of my survival taken care of. So even though I feel a little stuck in a Sisyphean sense, I do feel like the monotony has produced a net degree of freedom for me despite the draw backs. I also feel like I don't fully relate to how Phase 1 causes you to question your identity because I think I did a good job at deconstructing things and I didn't go into my job post-grad defining myself based on my career path. I went in with the mind set that a job is sometimes just a job and that I can find fulfillment in various other areas of life like my relationships, various hobbies, and volunteer work. Sure, I'm a empathetic and artistic person, but that doesn't mean I need to monetize those character traits by studying to be a therapist or starting an etsy shop that will eventually support me with my paintings. At the same time, while I know how to derive pleasure and fulfillment from various areas of my life, I'm trying to find exactly where I fit in the spectrum of *a job is just a job, clock in and clock out, live your best life outside of work*  to *my job is my passion and life purpose and I want that to be the center of my life.*  I don't see either of these resonating with me completely but I don't see myself as not finding a sensse of truth in both of those statements either. So yes, I do feel a bit lost in terms of how my current job feels kind of souless and I'm questioning what I care about and what I want to master but at the same time, it's not so bad because I know that I'm not tied down to a fixed identity around all of this, that my job and career is a part of my life and not the whole.    Phase 2A: Separation  Dr. K describes this phase as when you physically and mentally check out of our situation because internally you don't want to do this anymore but externally, you feel like you're stuck in this life that you can't change. However, this isn't a problem to be solved, rather a phase you need to go through. The research cites the following: Dr. K expands on this by describing that the oscilation between upbeat self confidence and self disgust as being afraid of the future but feeling ashamed about not taking action despite the fear, or being proud of how far you have come in terms of your achievements, such as graduating from Harvard medical for example, but still feeling some sort of disconnect because the new identity hasn't formed yet and you feel some type of way despite your life looking good on paper. It's a process of moving from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. People often stall at this phase because they think that feeling disconnected is a problem rather than something they have to move through and as a result, sometimes they end up doubling down to shoo away these feelings instead of letting those feelings lead them into action unless they are forced to because life takes away their job or spouse for example.  I feel like the description quoted above and Dr. K's expansion sums up some of the emotional experiences I have had when I was mildly depressed for a couple months. I did feel that sense of self-disgust at my fuck-ass corporate job because it felt like the people around me are pursuing something greater and eventually, while I'm going good for myself right now, I will be left behind in a dead end corporate job while my peers will be pursuing something greater in terms of skill and fulfillment like going into law, medicine, diplomacy, getting a CPA etc. I went through a phase where I was deconstructing some of my self deprecating tendencies and how I have a chip off my shoulder from college regarding my performance and my inability to work long hours. And I think I came out of it with a greater sense of appreciation of where I am right now,  my accomplishments regarding the things I have been working hard towards, and a greater sense of humility. Because humility is about not thinking of yourself. It isn't self deprecation since while you're not in constant praise of yourself like a grandiose narcisissist, you're still centerring yourself by constantly picking yourself apart. Yes, humility is recognizing that there is always people who are better than you in some way, but humility is also recognizing that you're pretty damn good yourself and being thankful for your own gifts and fortune instead of taking them for granted.  I don't think I went through the de-coupling phase of separating your identity from your commitments and roles since I wasn't super latched in to begin with and I think this crisis isn't hitting as hard because I have been so intrinsically motivated for so long in my life. As a result, the process in which I was navigating this path, prior to coming across the obstacle course that is the quarter life crisis, was already correct even though I haven't gotten to the product. But that's the whole point, the process is more valuable than the product and I think even listening to this video, that gives me a sense of relief because while I do feel lost since I haven't *figured things out* yet, it's nice knowing that I'm going about this the right way.  However, I do find myself checking out because of my tendency to zone out on tiktok on the regular and having a screen time that I'm not ready to confront just yet. I do sometimes feel like I'm going through the motions and then I feel a sense of panic set in when I realize that I have been disassociating in the productivity of my job to where Monday to Friday feels like a blur, then the weekend goes by even quicker, and next thing I know, my week and the whole month flew by. I feel like my chronically online tendencies falls in between the phase 1 tendency to get into an addiction or compulsion to cope with the existential crisis mixed in with the separation of phase 2A.    Phase 2B: Time Out  Here, while you do have still have the sense of separation of phase 2A, often times people think it's beneficial to take a break from what they're doing to figure their shit out. Often times, this involves going to a different location to get yourself out of your current life to think about what else you can do instead. People often get stuck in phase 2A because they are dead set on making their old life work and doubling down because you want to cling on to the stability of the old rather than seeing what else is out there and jumping into phase 2B.  The research cites the following :  Dr. K describes his own situation and how he had to travel across the world and separate himself from grades and achievement to gain more clarity. He also talks about how many people in this stage want to escape their old life for the new, but they still want to cling to the stability and certainty of the old life. Then they start asking themselves how they know if XYZ is the right thing to do. As a result, people in Phase 2B have the avoidance of the future as well because they want a guranteed future and they're stuck in their heads without being able to embrace uncertainty of not knowing what will happen after they make these decisions. Phase 2B makes you avoid the past and avoid the future because you're not ready to make a plan.  I do find myself relating to phase 2B in that I'm planning a trip coming up later this year where I take a month out of work to travel. Part of it is following things that make me happy, such as learning about different cultures, and also challenging myself in the process since I'm very much the type of person why makes travelling a sport or boot camp of sorts rather than a relaxing day at the beach. Listen, if I fly my ass half way across the world and spend a shit ton of money to get there, I'm not going to be sipping a maragarita on the beach. I can relax and do that shit in Texas. If I'm taking my time and money that far away, I'm going to do as much as I can with my time and immerse myself in that culture rather than isolating myself in a resort, or doing like 1 or 2 things a day. I'm also taking this trip because I want to see what travel means to me and what role it's going to play in my life. Is this an itch that I need to scratch every few years, or is this something I want to do on a semi regular basis? How important is this to my sense of fulfillment and to what extent do I want to share this with a significant other? Answering this question is goign to be important regarding my choices in my life partner, my reproductive choices, and my career to a certain extent.  I'm currently dating someone who I love but who I tend to clash with in terms of intellectual compatibility. I'm very traditionally smart in relation to academics, nerdy hobbies, and writing out my existential crisis in the form of long ass essays that really only I read (and occasionally my friends and significant other when I have a lot of say so I give them assigned reading lol). He is very intelligent on technical matters and is very trade school coded. And this difference was a source of admiration for both of us in the relationship. He's impressed by the interesting things I have to say and the conversations we have and I'm impressed with the more unconventional path he took careerwise where instead of going into college, he went more on the certification route in IT. It inspired me and gave me the courage to take my own path in college and honeslty, he's so intelligent about things that I don't know shit about. Like he's the type of person who you can call to fix your car, your plumbing, your internet issues, and any other DIY project you may have where I suck at basically all of these things. I remember seeing a very old Tumblr post. I have no clue if this is true but I do think it's very funny but it's this anecdote of the Obama's helping their elder daughter Malia move into Harvard. Everyone is helping her move in and Barack is just twiddling this thumbs in the corner and Michelle is like *what are you doing just standing there, go do something.* Then Barack is trying to set up like some IKEA furniture and is struggling with the instructions. And I'm very much like Barack in this anecdote where I am smart and successful in my own ways but I struggle with technical and detail oriented things that my boyfriend is really good with.  Despite the fact that we're both really smart in our own ways, I feel like there is a lack of fulfillment in my relationship because while it's really happy, healthy, and supportive, I don't feel like my intellectual needs are being met. And I'm trying to figure out exactly how much of that need I need to be met for a life long commitment to someone. Maybe I can find this intellectual fulfillment in my friends and my career rather than my life partner, which is fine since I don't expect my husband to fulfill every single need I have as that can be a nerve wrecking expectation. Part of me thinks that if I get a job that I'm more intellectually engaged with that this will alleviate the pressure in getting my needs met through the one avenue of my partner. It was kind of nice during college where I was academically challenged but then I got to turn my brain off around my partner temporarily. At the same time, I remember even then picking up on the feeling of the lack of intellectual fulfillment in my relationship even though I couldn't really articulate it to myself at that time. And even now, while I do have an outlet through my hobbies to get my intellectual needs met, I still feel the lack of fulfillment. To tie it back to travel, I think part of it is because I'm considerably more well travelled and I care about travel more than my boyfriend. There is nothing wrong with having different interests, but I think it's important to have some common ground in certain interests that give you a lot of fulfillment so that you can continue connecting to the other person over time. And I'm trying to figure out if that is the case for me with travel.  The role travel plays in my life also factors into my reproductive choices since I'm still on the fence about whether or not I want to have a child. If this is something that I need to get out of my system when I'm young or if this is simply an itch that I want to scratch every few years, that's great in terms of the possibility of having a kid. However, if I want to regularly travel, that's going to be more challenging because it's difficult and expensive to travel with a kid and it's likely that for the first 5-10 years that I'm not going to be travelling often. Some challenges include your baby crying on a flight, or your toddler / young child being cranky and hyper active from travelling long distances. Travelling can be distressing and anxiety inducing but when you're an adult, you have more emotional regulation skills than a child to be dealing with the inconveniences that are thrown your way. I feel strir crazy after a long flight and I don't want to be seated for that long. A 5-year old feels the same way but they don't have the impulse control to stay put, which is developmentally appropriate for their age, so then they end up acting out, throwing tantrums, and running around. Not to mention things get so much more expensive when you're travelling with a family rather than just solo. If I do have a kid, I do want to raise them in the way I was where I give them the gift of travel and having a variety of experiences, but I do realize that the lifestyle my parents were able to give me in the 2000s has a very different liklihood of achievability in 2024 financially. I'm not saying that it's impossible to travel after you have a kid, but there are a lot of additional things you will need to think about before making this decision.  And if it turns out that travel is more important to me, I see nothing wrong with pursuing my sense of fulfillment in that route rather than becoming a parent.  Finally, there is the role of travel in one's career. I don't have the same rose toned glasses I had at 17 when I found out that you can travel for work as a consultant for example. The reality is that travelling for work isn't as glamorous as it can seem. Often times as a consultant, you will be shipped off to the butt fuck of nowhere in Idaho surrounded by potatos instead of New York or San Francisco. Even if you do go to somewhere more exciting, you're travelling on the company's time so you might not have the time or energy to actually explore. And I think that's a different kind of torture to where you dreamed of travelling your whole life but when you finally get the opportunity to do so, you can't even enjoy it properly. I also have friends who do have to travel frequently and it really disrupts with their ability to have a healthy routine which affects their physical and mental health. At the same time, I do know that travel is an important factor in my life and I don't know how exactly travelling for work will affect me, so I'm not completely ruling it out as something that can be integrated career wise. Which is why I think having a month where I'm constantly travelling can be insightful to the questions I have for myself and how I want to structure my life careerwise but also in terms of my romantic relationships and reproductive decisions. It will also give me some distance from my daily life, my relationship, and my job in a way that simply taking a week off work can't.    Stage 3: Exploration  Dr. K opens this section by quoting the research. Dr. K elaborates on this by saying that's a process of actively recreating yourself and reinventing yourself, rather than finding something and getting stuck in it again. Some people get stuck here because they don't think they have the time to experiment for it's own sake and just want the right answer, whether that be the perfect partner, career, etc. The problem isn't that you don't have the right answer, that goes back to the old way of thinking pre-crisis. The problem is assuming that there is a right answer to begin with and that you don't have to actively craft the life you want. Dr. K also talks about how the advice to *just put yourself out there* when it comes to dating doesn't always work for people is because they haven't done the work in phase 1, 2A, and 2B to get to the exploration phase since you have to figure out what is wrong, unpack the baggage you currently have and separate yourself from it before re-establishing your identity so that you have the room for new things to enter into your life.  I feel like this really resonates with my on the career level because I always have people telling me that I need to start searching on Linked-In and start applying to jobs since I'm dissatisfied. But I don't quite feel ready for that. For one, I don't want to get into this job market until after I have had more experience professionally and have gotten a couple promotions. There are still things that I want to learn from this job before moving on to something new. Another reason that came to me while watching this video is that I'm still mainly in phase 2 and I need to work through some things before I start property putting myself out there so that this is done in a more sustainable way. While I'm not super happy with my position at work right now, I don't quite feel ready to put myself out there. Part of it is the phase 2 pitfall of being afraid to let go of the old while also not being happy with the old, but another thing is that I simply just don't feel ready not because I'm lazy or lacking in ambition, but because I'm not in that phase of the process yet. I honestly think travelling for a little bit will help me a ton and this video has made me feel more motivated to take more action in my life since I know the way this process is structured and where I am right now.  Stage 4: Rebuilding  The research explains the following: Dr. K explaines that what got us into this problem in the first place is that we crafted a life without understanding who we are or exploring ourselves. As a result, there is a fundamental mismatch of the life around you and who you are. In order to get through the quarter life crisis, you need to recognize that this sucks for you, check out mentally, then intentionally check out, then you start exploring yourself where it's not about finding the right answer but discovering who you are. And unless you intentionally leave, whether that means going to somewhere else geographically, surrounding yourself with different people, you can't do that exploration. From that sense of exploration comes a greater sense of who you are intrinsically, thus causing you to be able to actively craft your life consciously to make your external life align with your inner life. He then goes into talking about his life and experiences with these phases from 24:35 to 27:53. Dr. K then goes back to the research that says the following about phase 4:  Basically, the crisis is necessary to go through in order to create a better life for yourself. Dr. K goes into this whole thing in an uplifting and motivating way from 28:03 to the end of the video. I'm not going to summarize it since it's something that I think needs to stand on it's own and I can't do it justice in a summary lol.  I can relate to the fact that there is a fundamental mismatch of the life around me and who I am and that I have crafted my life as of right now without exploring myself . I say this even though I have been intentionally thinking of various questions regarding my identity and what I want from my life not because I don't have an understanding of myself but because given that I'm only a couple years out of college, simply by my lack of life experience, I haven't explored enough of myself and what I want long term. I'm like at the infancy stage of establishing my adult life. As a result of the work I have been putting in over the years, I don't think I'm dealing with this as intensely as a lot of my peers who are more entrenched in an extrinsically motivated world than I am. The last bit of this video was really nice and it did give me a lot of hope and reassurance regarding where I'm at right now.