get through my quarter-life crisis

As I was saying in my previous post, weirdly enough something started to change during the past few days. Before, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life and felt quite depressed because of this and had no determination to do anything. It was that “I want to hide under my bed” feeling, that probably many of you have also experienced. But now it’s like I want to do a lot of things at once and I am wondering if I am spreading my efforts in too many directions. Probably not, but here’s the longer story:

While wasting time (yeah, that’s something I’m working on – see my other goals) on the Internet, I also started to look at jobs or fantasize about places to go and things to do. And I realized that I don’t have to have a very clear direction in mind. I found some concrete – let’s call them – “career opportunities” that sounded like a lot of fun and decided to give them a try and apply. Of course some require that I take other steps in between. For instance, I still don’t know if I want to be a researcher or not – but you know what? it doesn’t really matter that much! I found a PhD position that I liked and I will take the GRE and apply for it. At the same time I found a video contest and I will try to do something for that as well. In the end, whether I will be a scientist or an artist it will depend on chance, success and others, but for the moment I keep my options open.

So my advice for all those going through this hard time of 20sth is EXPLORE! Nothing has to be forever, really. If later I won’t like my PhD anymore and decide I’d be happier teaching English in developing countries, that’s what I will do!

Weirdly enough, having to write for my goals on 43 things has made me a bit more determined and optimistic about my chances of success.

I still haven’t figured out what it is that I really really want, but at least now I am approaching more opportunities and taking direct action on them. I think it will be easier to understand myself and my motivations if I explore different paths.

I have never been 50 years old so far, but maybe the quarter-life crisis is not that bad, because now there is still time to explore. I am happy I am young! :)

I am not a big fan of self-help books, but this time I decided to give it a try. I just ordered from Amazon a book entitled “Conquering your Quarterlife Crisis”. I looked through it and it seemed quite OK – I don’t expect it to be life changing, but at least it contains some stories of other people who went through the same moods and phases as I do now. So here I move from “I didn’t know” to wanting to hear the stories of all those other “many people”.

I guess in another society we would gain life experience by talking to those elder than us. But in this alienated world we’re living in today it’s more difficult to get that sort of insight. Perhaps it is here that this sort of literature is expected to be useful, by filling up a gap.

I shall see to what extent my expectations will be met when I actually get the book. Yey!

there were so many people going through this as well..