25 and Confused

Are you in your mid-20s and feeling that your immediate death is near? And that your life is a mess, you have no career to speak of, that you wasted a big part of your life on trying to achieve results that turned out to be completely useless? That you would like to hide in the bushes and when you hesitantly poke your nose out from there, the world will have turned pink and pretty and everything will have been all figured out?

The good news are that you are not alone. Personal crises come and go, and it seems that the quarter-life crisis has become something of a real headache for twenty-something university graduates, who have worked hard to get where they are just to be punched in the face by Life.

At 25 (or before, or a bit after) you are likely to start analysing every single aspect of your life. You realise that you might actually die someday (and that day might come soon), the insecurity regarding financial matters and one's personal achievements, goals and dreams increases, and the combination of fear, unsatisfaction and frustration leads one to scrutinize personal relationships, employment and pretty much one's whole future.You sit there with a nice paper from a top university and nobody appreciates it. Everyone else is getting married, or having children, or travelling the world, or working in the City, or having some cake all the time and still staying slim.

The bad news is that I cannot offer you any clever and foolproof advice on how to survive the crisis: I'm in the middle of my own. Unemployed, qualified and confused. Nevertheless, I have a hunch that maybe time is an important factor: there is plenty of it (unless that truck runs you over and you indeed die young), no decisions have to be made on this very spot at this very moment. Another good piece of advice (stolen from here) is to figure out what you want to do with yourself. A lot of people run around, not knowing what they want to do with their lives. Take a deep breath and answer the following questions: what do you do for fun? And what are you passionate about? It is important that the passions come from within, that they're not something that someone else is imposing on you. What are you really good at? It could also be a good idea to check your signature strengths over at the Authentic Happiness-site. Why? Well, for starters, once you know what you are good at and where your heart lies, it might be easier to start figuring out the rest.

Remember to stay motivated and positive: life might feel tedious and horrible right now, but this is also an opportunity to search your soul and to to find your path. Who knows, you might even be able to avoid the mid-life crisis in 15 years or so from now.

Ok, let's stop here. As this whole “surviving the crisis of 25”- project is very much ongoing, I will keep this updated. I would also like to hear comments from people who have survived or are going through the same process.