Did you have a quarter-life crisis?

No, but I had one hell of a mid-life crisis that lasted from about 38 to 44. lol
My daughter is almost 26 and may be going through something similar. Broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years, just started 2 new jobs,one which is promising as a very unique career opportunity perhaps, and is moving next week.
She’s really launching her rocket. haha

At 25 I was married and in the duh zone, just waiting to have a baby and grow flowers and get pets. Guess I saved it all up for the big bang around 40. It was a doozy, lol

My 20s were horrible, and that term was around then, which was in the 90s. I don’t think it applies to everyone. You might be among a self-selected peer group of confused people, which would skew your perspective. I do believe, though, that popular culture encourages more self absorbed behavior now than it did in recent decades.

I got through it by suffering it until I was 40 (just turned) and don’t know that I could have done it any other way. Living in the world is depressing as fuck if you overthink it, which is what I generally was doing. The problem is that thinking (and critical thinking) is held in high esteem among some achievers, so it can become a trap where you (i.e. me) can find critical flaws in everything that constitutes modern living.

It’s only when I learned that this is all literally just a big picture show or a big playground for your consciousness (which in some ways wants both the good and the bad experiences, so long as it’s experience) and that one should let the heart decide the what and why and the mind be left with the how and where that life softened and became a safe place to hang out.

The trick with all this, though, is that you have to know your heart’s voice or your intuition as distinguished from your mind. Otherwise, you’re just chasing dogma, and any dogma will either disappoint you or turn you into a rigid person who is no fun to be around.

If I were to dispense advice, I would say spend time being quiet and listening to what bubbles up as inspiration to move in one direction or another. Let that guide you in your movement, but be kind of fluid about the opportunities that come your way. Say “yes” when your heart says “yes.” Stay with something as long as it’s useful and interesting, and when you feel the nudge to move on, be confident that the next thing is coming available. Don’t anticipate or worry too much about results. Just be earnest in your process and the rewards will take care of themselves.

What we don’t have much of in modern life is control of our inner space. We fill it with information and entertainment. When it is empty, there is room for observation and inspiration.

”...being the captain of your own ship…”

Ha… We’re all captains captain! The more experienced of us have sailed to calmer seas.

@serenade Thanks for your answer! I’m mainly asking out of curiosity for people’s different experiences, and generational differences. I had a pretty confusing time about three or four years ago, and since then figured out exactly what I want to do with my life. Now I’m going after that goal like a shark. I pour all this energy into it, and all of that is an investment in my future- it’s an awesome feeling.

A lot of my friends are still sort of waffling around. We’re 25–26 now, and out parents and grandparents were mostly settled and had kids by this age. A lot of them seem to have regrets about missed opportunities.

On the one hand, it’s great that we’re being encouraged to chase our dreams and not compromise. On the other hand, are goals like “find your life’s passion” or “change the world” too big for some people? Is that why there are so many confused young people?

Of course people in their 20’s are confused! They’ve yet to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. Many have graduated from college (or realized that they probably should’ve gone to college, or that they should’ve done more than party in college), and are trying to decide what to do next. Their careers, love lives, etc. are stuck in “undecided mode” and, for the first time in their lives, they’re on their own to work it out. I wouldn’t call it a quarter-life crisis, though. I’d call it life.

Luckily, I’m about to turn 24 and I’m already married, a homeowner, and have a very good idea of what I want to happen come graduation in December. No confusion for me.

Life crises happen to everybody in different decades (my most recent has come as a result of my leaving full-time employment), and they can be damned uncomfortable. But they also present opportunities for personal discovery and growth.

I just drifted along in my 20s, an emotional mess. When I turned 29, I had an impending 30th birthday crisis. I was in a bad marriage, I was not happy in my job, I had not accomplished any of my goals. Within a year, I had totally changed the first two, and was working on the third.

I abhorred my twenties. I’ve never considered myself having a “life crisis” in the strictest sense, as I seem to have a fairly high tolerance for pain and change. As a teen, I had a feeling I’d never live to see 25. There is no logical explanation for that—just goofy teenage fatalism.

I pushed myself to a ridiculous degree in college—no one held me to as high a standard as I held myself. While I enjoyed the honors that came with successes, I feel it was very hard on my mental well-being.

Then, I married too young. I married while still under the belief that I didn’t have many years left, that I had found my one and only soul mate, that I could never be happy outside the narrow picture that I painted for myself.

Again, the fatalism of my youth was my very poor guide.

But I did live past 25 (way past 25), and I’ve made a life for myself that is nothing short of magical. And youth is truly wasted on the young. My only advice is to continue to enlarge your vistas—get a wider view of what lies ahead. Take your time—enjoy that wonderful energy and “recklessness” that comes with youth. And be careful!

Life crises are times when your story (of who you are, where you’re heading, and how the world is) stops working. The early twenties is a natural time for that to happen. Until then, you’ve been busily constructing your story, but that story is based mostly on pretty bad information derived from questionable sources. It’s to be expected that this story will be a poor road map and will need to be heavily revised or abandoned when you have to actually navigate the world as it is.

For me, that meant completely dropping the religious narrative of my upbringing, radically changing my line of work, temporarily cutting off contact with my family and moving to another country. Quite the crisis, really, but all good stuff in the end.

Abandoning bad maps is pretty much always a good idea.

As usual @thorninmud rings the bell and waves that flag wide and high. lol
Yes, shift happens and this road trip of life often calls for re-routing, detours, and taking the road less traveled. If you’re walking a crooked mile, time to blaze a new trail.

It depends how long my life turns out to be…

I’ve known quite a number of people in my general age group (born in the middle decades of the 20th century) who underwent a rough period, if not a full-blown crisis, at or around the 30th birthday. That’s probably not quarter-life, but maybe one-third-life. “Midlife,” after all, seems to encompass a pretty broad range.

For some of us, that might have been associated with a slogan of the sixties, namely, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” We said that blithely when we were appreciably younger, and then, all of a sudden—were we the enemy now? One friend of mine was practically paralyzed with depression over turning thirty. This was in the early seventies.

There was also a feeling, maybe fostered by our parents’ generation, which came through the Depression and World War II, that by thirty we ought to have found our path and settled down. Having spent our twenties in some adventuresome exploration of various kinds (in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, a period of huge changes in U.S. society), not all of us were ready for that, and hitting thirty came as a cold shock.

I’ve known quite a few who made major life changes at about 29, 30, or 31: big moves, career decisions (such as leaving a job to go back to school—especially law school, for some reason), marriage or divorce, having a baby. It’s as if a timer had gone off and what had seemed like all the time in the world were suddenly transformed into “Oh, my God, it’s getting late!”

I felt that pressure myself and made several big decisions at 29, one of which entailed a transcontinental move.

Hell, @Haleth your mid twenties is a life crisis!

I’m 22 and I think I’m suffering from quarter life crisis since I always asking myself “What am I doing and what I suppose to do with my life?”.

The thing is I am a college student that want to be a musician, but my major is has nothing to do with it but my parents and people surround me said that it is a foolish dream. So, it throws me to dilemma and makes me confuse what should I do.

I hear that great people saying to follow your dreams and fulfilling the reason why you were born but why does everyone I know is like against it?

I think that’s quarter life crisis is. Life seems confusing and left you flooded with unanswered question that paralyze you for actually getting some job done.

PS: Sorry for my English.

@nerevars

Never let others determine your choices. Those that do not support your dreams are not friends or loved ones, they are enemies to be vanquished.
You may have to pay the bills but you do not have to give up your dreams.
People that discourage you do so from their own fear, their programming and because they have been too controlled and frightened to pursue their own passions, or…they have no creative passions so yours seem frivolous.

@Coloma I has been thinking like that too.

I want to start fresh. Leave it all behind and start pursuing my dreams by getting a job (eventhough it just only for the food and bills) and keep practicing and making music until I am skilled enough to get someone notice me and hire me. But, it feels like I don’t have enough courage to do it. and the worst thing is I don’t even know what scared me.

@nerevars Just do it! To hell with the rest! haha