Finally, it was over.

After a very turbulent year at the university, during which I mostly felt like crap due to the fact that the girl I liked started dating a mutual friend, on 14th July 2016, I managed to defend my  Master thesis and to get my Msc. in electrical engineering ⁽¹⁾Oh yes, and in informatical technology, as well. You’ve got to admire the versatility modern college provides you with.

This was the moment I have been striving for ever since I was seven. This was the moment where I finally accomplished this major goal. This was the moment when I am finally going to make everyone close to me really proud. After all, the sole purpose of preceding 18 years of education was to have a degree in my hand and to become a „man of my own“.

I woke up the following morning feeling relieved, joyful and hungover ⁽²⁾Fuck you, we celebrated after all. The main reason for my optimism was the fact that I had a job awaiting me just around the corner. You see, during my final bachelor year, I had signed a stipend contract with a private electrical engineering company, according to which I was supposed to start working there once I graduate ⁽³⁾Which had everything to do with my qualifications and my expertise and nothing with the fact my father worked in the same company.

Roughly month and a half later, on 1st September 2016, I entered my office for the very first time. As I was approaching the grey business complex built in the typical socialistic-Yugoslavia style, I felt both excited and nervous. „This is it“, I thought. „This is the moment when my journey in the adult world begins. From this moment onwards I am my own man, with my own salary and my own life. From this moment onwards life will be as easy and smooth as baby’s bottom.“ ⁽⁴⁾Not that I know how smooth baby’s bottoms are. You perv!.

Alas, as it usually happens, things started unfolding in a very different way than I imagined. There were many questions left unanswered. Do I want to do this job for the next 40 years? When will I travel the world?When will I change the world? Dear me, I am still single, when on Earth will I get married? When will I get my own place? With what money will I get my own place? Should I get a car? Are my hobbies worth the time?  While we are at it, where is all the time going? How am I supposed to like, accomplish all I want and still manage to hang out with my friends? Actually, what DO I want? God, can’t we just all go back and play Pro Evolution Soccer the whole day like we used to do during our teens? ⁽⁵⁾Sorry, FIFA fanboys, PES is for real men

Very soon, the excitement and curiosity and feeling of novelty were gone. Very soon, repetitiveness and boredom of everyday routine started to kick in instead. Very soon, I started feeling completely overwhelmed and lost.

These feelings completely escalated on my graduation day. In Croatia, the graduation can be safely regarded as one of the most important and memorable days of your life. ⁽⁶⁾Comparable perhaps only to your wedding day. Or the day your first child is born. Or the day when Goran Ivanisevic won his first and only Wimbledon title. It was held in the grand Lisinski concert building, in the monumental main hall which can accommodate up to 3000 people.

It was one of those occasions where everybody dresses up to the best of their ability. Where men suit up and think they look like the newest James Bond actor whereas, in reality, they look like they are ready to do your tax report. Where girls spent abnormal amounts of time and money doing their hair and matching the colour of their dress with the colour of their shoes so they can look absolutely incredible when they are posing for the new profile Facebook photo with their family where they show the world how extremely happy and proud they are and overexaggerate the importance of their own accomplishments as if they have just discovered the 10th planet or something and not spent the last year writing their master thesis between drunken nights at a local disco club and romantic vacations with Juan all around Spain.

A photo such as this one.

For the overwhelmed and lost Vjeko the whole event was quite a drag. I have never been a huge fan of similar ceremonies. The traditional “your future is bright” and “you are the chosen ones” speech by the dean merely intensified the feeling of confusion. Also, due to my lack of interest in the electrical engineering during my final year (already!), the Latin words cum laude weren’t added next to my Msc. title. For someone as nerdy as me, who used to do quite well in the academic environment, this was quite a blow. I couldn’t admit to myself I didn’t put enough effort and that my results sucked as a consequence.

Still, I looked forward to seeing all the members of my generation at the same place. Both close friends and broader social circle were present there. I looked forward to reconnecting with everybody, even if it would last only for a couple of hours. Perhaps I am not the only one with similar problems and doubts, I thought. Perhaps talking and sharing ideas and perspectives is precisely what I need. Perhaps I am finally going to feel better.

Boy, was I wrong!

Everybody seemed like they have everything figured out. Everybody was so optimistic. So positive. So confident. So…happy. As I sat down before the start of the ceremony, I felt like I don’t belong there. Completely abandoned. Completely alone.  The interaction with my peers aggravated my state of mind even further. I felt so detached from the reality. As I sat there, waiting for the ceremony to start, I couldn’t overhear people around me talking about their plans, about their futures, about their goals:

“Oh, yes, I just got my dream job at Microsoft!”

“Oh, yes, I am moving to my new flat together with my fiance within a month!”

“Oh, yes, I have more than enough time for my friends, I have found the perfect work-life balance. I am travelling to Afrika next summer to treat the children with my newly invented medical device which is going to save millions of lives and change the world forever!”

FUUUUUUCK! YOUUUUUUU!

When the graduation ended, I returned home. The guests were to arrive at any moment. The table was done. The lunch was prepared. Everything was ready for the celebration to begin.

Except for me.

As we were driving back, I got into an argument with my parents. Being unable to take responsibility for my emotions and my choices, I started blaming them for everything in my life. Basically, acting like a complete prick. The argument got heated, voices were raised and everything resulted in me slamming the door of my room and throwing myself desperately on my bed. I was trembling with my whole body. I was unable to control myself.

And just like that, tears started rolling down my face.

THE QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS?

First of all, what is a life crisis? According to dr. Oliver Robinson from the University of Greenwich:

A crisis episode is a period in adult life that is noticeably more difficult, stressful and unstable than normal, during which you sometimes struggle to cope. A crisis is also an important turning point in your life due to challenging changes that occur during it. Crisis episodes typically last for a year or two but may be shorter or longer.

The quarter-life crisis is the first major crisis that usually occurs when people reach their mid-twenties or early thirties. It is characterized by doubt, insecurity, disappointment, loneliness, and in extreme cases, depression. Adults experiencing one often feel uncertain about what the future brings. They feel lost and confused. They feel they are never successful enough. Never rich enough. Never proactive enough.

Never good enough.

The quarter-life crisis most often happens when people enter adulthood and start dealing with the “real world”. It is very hard to pinpoint the exact moment it starts and its exact causes. Different triggers have been quoted by people experiencing it. For instance, in a study published on LinkedIn, finding a job one is passionate about was the top concern. Other complaints included not earning enough, being unable to buy a property, failing to achieve personal goals, being pressured to marry and have a baby, etc.

The results of this study are echoed in other publications dedicated to the quarter-life crisis. In his book Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, Damian Barr interviewed a huge number of people who have gone through the damn thing.  „Not doing what I love“, „Bad relationship“, „Stuck in a job without perspective“ were most often quoted as reasons for the quarter-life crisis.

I personally think quarter life crisis has a lot to do with the end of your formal education. During our school days, we are a part of the system. There is a clear goal ahead of us and our every single action is supposed to bring us closer to it. There is not much uncertainty about the near future. Hell, most of us even rarely ever think about what will happen the next day,  let alone in a couple of years. ⁽⁷⁾Or else we would never have “just one more drink” on Saturday evening and suffer from a headache during the entire Sunday

After graduation, things abruptly change. Suddenly, you are responsible for your own life, for your own problems, for your own decisions. It seems like our every single choice comes with huge consequences – imagine if it is the wrong one. Every failure seems like the end of the world. It is one thing to ask for your parents support when you lose a year at the university and quite other to do so when you should be employed, married, independent and like, fulfilled.

There is another aspect of the quarter-life crisis I haven’t covered so far. In the LinkedIn study mentioned above, 75% percent of 25-33 years old said they experienced something similar. Why are these number higher today than ever before? It is not hard to imagine someone older reading this article and merely shrugging his shoulders, attributing the quarter-life crisis to the entitlement of the younger generations. Did our parents really know what they wanted in life so much better? Is the quarter-life crisis really something typical for us, spoilt and whiny millennials?

Well, I think these extremely high percentages have a lot to do with the dramatic changes world had undergone toward the end of the 20th century. I have a theory that three major factors have influenced the way we perceive and value our own lives:

• The world spins faster than ever before

Let’s be frank. Today, the pace of life is faster than ever before. The advances in technological development have exerted major influence here. Cell phones allow people to call us whenever wherever. If someone delivers a seen at our Facebook message or doesn’t reply in the next 10 minutes, we are immediately pissed. Hell, according to one study, it takes us a full second LESS to walk for 60 foot than it took us some 10 years ago.

This sense of urgency is apparent when we are considering our future as well. There is a lot of social pressure on those who aren’t succeeding fast enough. Members of the older generation who have kinda forgotten how it is to be 25 are especially keen on asking the unpleasant questions. If I had a penny every time a family member or an older colleague asked me when am I getting married and what am I waiting for I would have had… quite a lot of pennies.

The pressure is especially apparent when we compare ourselves to our peers. Which brings me to the following point.

• The internet and the social media

Let’s not kid ourselves – we all compare ourselves with people around us that to a certain extent. We all make occasional reality checks to see how we are doing in life in comparison to our social circle. As they say, nobody wants to be the dumbest kid in the classroom.

One of the consequences of the appearance of the Internet and social media is that today, the classroom is bigger than ever before. Many years ago, our social circle was much smaller. More importantly, we were less aware of what everyone was doing at any given moment. The internet and the social media have allowed us to compare ourselves more thoroughly with a greater number of people than ever before.

The problem is that while we make these comparisons, we fail to consider that social media present us with a distorted picture. That we are looking at someone’s highlight reel. That most of the people are simply deliberately posting the best of the best. That most of the people are bluffing. ⁽⁸⁾For instance, I am certain we all know at least one annoying couple that floods our Facebook feed with numerable photos in which they declare their everlasting love, whereas, in reality, their relationship is toxic and highly dysfunctional This state of affairs merely distorts our perception of reality. It is very easy to lose perspective and imagine everyone else is having the time of their life. That we somehow, somewhere made the wrong choice.

• The freedom of choice

In a study carried out by D.A.Redelmeier and E.Shafir ⁽⁹⁾Redelmeier D. A., Shafir E., Medical Decision Making In Situation That Offer Multiple Alternatives, physicians read about Medication X and were then asked whether they would prescribe the medication for a patient with osteoarthritis. The physicians clearly considered the medication worthwhile, because only 28 percent of them chose not to prescribe it. When another group of physicians was asked whether they would prescribe medication X or an equally effective Medication Y, 48 percent chose to prescribe nothing. Apparently, adding another equally effective medication to the list of possibilities made it difficult for the physicians to decide between the two medications.

Dan Gilbert, the author of the book Stumbling Onto Happiness, explains their behaviour as follows:

If you’ve ever caught yourself saying, „I’m having such a hard time deciding between these two movies that I think I’l just stay home and watch reruns instead,“ then you know why physicians made the mistake they did.

Everyone behaves as the physicians from this study to a certain extent. We like to have choices and number of options available. But, if we have to choose between a greater number of possibilities, we often have trouble deciding to choose between them. We fear we might have the wrong choice and that the other choices might be better. ⁽¹⁰⁾In the 21st century, two separate terms were coined describing this phenomenon: FOMO, or, Fear Of Missing Out and FOBO, or,  Fear of a Better Option The main reason this phenomenon is nowadays pronounced more than ever before is the number of choices available to us. Compared to, some 50 years ago, we are able to choose between multiple options in almost every single area of life.

Let’s consider something as mundane as watching the TV. In the past, it was a miracle if a household had a TV set, let alone multiple channels. Nowadays everything is different. Don’t know what to watch on the TV? Just grab a remote and switch between 100 channels available. Or open your Netflix and choose a documentary or TV Show of your own choice. Or open youtube and search for a random movie you’d like to watch.  ⁽¹¹⁾Or download the movie/TV Show via piratebay. You haven’t heard it from me

Your career is arguably an even better example. It is no wonder so many people struggle to find their dream job – there are simply too many options. Some 50 years ago, there was no internet, the borders weren’t as open and travelling was much slower. It was more common to remain in the same workplace for the entire life. An average farmer in Texas was probably bound to remain a farmer for the rest of his life. Nowadays, on the other hand, you can freelance, you can become an entrepreneur/self-employed more easily, you can move to another country if you are not satisfied, etc. Once again the choice is abundant and this abundance is slowly killing our generation.

FIGHTING THE QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS

Now, this is the part of the article where I am going to disappoint you ⁽¹²⁾And pretend I haven’t done so already. Because so far I have once again detected the problem, but haven’t  offered a hint of a solution. The quarter-life crisis has been getting more and more recognition during the last couple of years. ⁽¹³⁾Remember dr. Oliver Robinson, mentioned earlier? He has devoted a greater part of his career – ten years, researching the matter Numerous publications and books have been written that tackle this problem and offer a handful of useful guidelines and pieces of advice. I have decided to combine the most common ones with my experience and present them in a form of yet another bulleted list.

Because who doesn’t like fucking bullet lists?

• You are not alone

In the months following my graduation, a great number of my close friends finished college as well and got their first job. Some of them were already in long-term relationships, some of them had their own place to live, some of them exclaimed they got the exact job they wanted. However, none of them said they got it all. Through conversations, I have discovered that most of them have their own doubts. Their own uncertainties. Their own questions. Very few of twentysomething I know claim they’ve got it all figured out.

I have written previously on this blog how our problems are rarely our own. This doesn’t mean they are not real. Nor does this cognition solve them. But the thought we have someone who is in the similar position with us, who can listen and understand us, who we can rely on, is very comforting. Talking to your peers, nurturing your relationships, hanging out with people and sharing experiences is often recommended as an efficient way of dealing with your quarter-life crisis.

All of it means we are not being irrational or unreasonable. It means things happening to us are perfectly normal.

Scary. And confusing.

But normal.

• Having problems is not a problem

In his book Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson wrote happiness equals solving problems. ⁽¹⁴⁾Readers might be familiar with it from the You Suck article, but since I think its importance can’t be overemphasized, I have decided to mention it here once again And not just any problems. Difficult, high-quality problems. Oh my god, I just want to go to sleep and wait for this day to finish sort of problems.

Manson was echoed by one of the most notable and influential psychologists of the 20th century, Erik Erikson. Erikson, who spent his lifetime studying identity, wrote the following in his book Identity: Youth and Crisis:

“Crisis […] is not an impending catastrophe, but rather a necessary turning point, a crucial moment, when development must move one way or another, marshalling resources of growth, recover, and further differentiation.”

When you think of it, it makes a lot of sense. Running a marathon makes us happy. Finishing college makes us proud. Raising a child makes us fulfilled ⁽¹⁵⁾At least that’s what my parents keep telling me None of this things are pleasant, or, god forbid, easy. Every single one of them includes solving a multitude of difficult problems. Every single one of them is often unpleasant and seemingly impossible. But they are totally worth the effort in the long run.

I think the quarter-life crisis is partially caused by the perspective we have in regard to our problems. We like to think problems are superfluous. That they merely ruin the perfection of our mid-twenties. But ironically, mid-twenties are full of difficult problems. I firmly believe we benefit from accepting them as a part of life. This small shift of perspective is the first step toward actually dealing with them.

• Avoiding the problems does not solve them

Now, the easiest way of dealing with your problems is to avoid them altogether. We humans really excel in this approach. Not only do we refuse to take responsibility for our problems, but we are champions of making excuses about why we fail to do so. The issue is that, no matter how much we try to avoid the problem, it is bound to return and haunt us again.

My sex life (or, lack of any, to be more precise) is a good example. It has been my soft spot for quite some time now. Over the years, I managed to convince myself that it is not actually such a huge problem. I altered my excuses but I really believed I shouldn’t be doing anything about it.  And whenever the problem threatened to surface, I diminished its significance with the help of some good old rationalization. I distracted myself with my hobbies. I spent time with my friends and thought not being alone is equal to not being lonely. I convinced myself the whole aspect of dating is not that important to me. However, under the surface, I was basically the same insecure teenager I was in high school. I have just learned to hide it very well. ⁽¹⁶⁾Or probably not so well – you can’t hide that from people around you, but I reckon most of them were considerate enough not to rub it in my face. Most. Of. Them!

This state of affairs lasted for quite some time. A couple of years really. Until yet another failed coffee triggered a chain reaction. Which hit me at the age of 24. And when I say hit me, I mean ran-me-over-like-a-bulldozer-and-jumped-on-my-lifeless-body. The sudden realization that the problem is still there hurt as fuck. It made me realize I am unable to deal with it on my own. It forced me to take responsibility. It resulted in me going to therapy and trying to solve this difficult problem.

Ultimately, it led to something good. Because, sooner or later, you have to, you know, do something.

• Res, non verba

Although my graduation has resulted in me hitting a new personal low, it had one major positive consequence. It acted as a wake-up call. I realized I can’t take this to continue any longer. I realized something needs to change. I realized I need to act. The question was only in which direction.

Roughly one month afterwards, I opened my chess blog. It was not immediately successful. But I was doing something. I was devoting myself to something I love. I was expressing myself and creating something that will last. Although I dreamt about earning some money out of it, it was never my primary motivation.

And somehow, little by little, it led to something. It is still not successful. I still haven’t managed to cover my initial expenses ⁽¹⁷⁾Which probably had something to do with the fact I managed to crash the entire thing a couple of times. But just recently, I got a message from a chess player who told me my writing has inspired him to start playing chess more actively. That comment solely is more fulfilling than anything I have ever experienced in the corporate world. Taking the action has definitely resulted in a big smile on my face.

And it seems I am not the only one with a similar experience. For instance, in his TedTalk – Refusing To Settle: The Quarter-Life Crisis Adam „Smiley“ Poswolsky, the author of the book The Quarter Life Break-Through, recommended acting as one of the pillars of resolving the quarter-life crisis. He called it making the ask:

„Take a risk, sign up for the class, volunteer, go abroad, work abroad, launch the crowd-funding campaign, start the blog, build that website… MAKE. THE. ASK.“

 

I think people too often wait for a magical solution to their problems. They complain about them, they ponder about them, they have wonderful ideas for resolving them. But they never do so. They remain passive and they never undertake any action. They never make the ask. Because making the ask is not easy. Making the ask is quite difficult because it is terrifying.

When I was opening my first blog, I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I made an awful lot of mistakes. Learning about WordPress, HTML, and CSS or figuring out how to display a chessboard scared the shit out of me.

But people forget bravery is not the absence of fear.

Bravery is choosing to act despite our fears.

• Think with your own head

In his book Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker writes about regrets persons and had on their deathbeds. „I wish I didn’t work so hard“, or „I wish I spent more time with family and friends, were among top five regrets. But do you know which was the number one?

„ I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.“

I honestly think this statement contains the core of the quarter-life crisis. I think that every trigger of the crisis mentioned earlier is connected to this sentence on some level. I think one of the main reasons people are unhappy today is because they concern themselves with the lives and opinions of other people.

We want to start a new sport, but friends tell us we will suck at it? Yeah, let’s sit at home and binge watch the new season of Narcos instead.

We are considering a change in career, but we are afraid what our parents will tell? Oh fuck it, we will remain miserable for the next 40 years instead.

We are unhappy in a relationship, but we are afraid what the society will think if we are still single? Oh fuck it, let’s enter a shitty marriage and hope everything will somehow work out in the end.

I think we often do things not because we want to do them, but because we are trying to please others.  I think it is really shitty to bring major life decisions on the basis of what someone thinks. I honestly believe the key to resolving the quarter-life crisis is to stop trying to please other people. And to start pleasing yourself instead. ⁽¹⁸⁾That is not to say that you need to become an egotistical prick who ignores the needs of other people. The way I view it, as long as pleasing yourself doesn’t violate other people’s rights, doesn’t violate their boundaries and doesn’t do them any harm, there is no reason not to go for it Almost every article, book or video discussing the quarter-life crisis I have read or watched gives this advice in one form or another. For instance, in the afore-mentioned Ted Talk, Adam Poswolsky tells us to:

„Stop comparing yourself to others. Start doing what’s meaningful to you.“

Another quote from the book Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, goes as follows:

„It’s feeling good about yourself whatever you’re earning, wherever you live, whoever and whatever you’re doing. […] The decisions we make don’t need to be popular – they just need to be right. For us. That’s not to say we should be contrary or go out of our way to harm or offend other people.“

In the end, it’s not those around you that are most important to you.  It’s not your coworkers, not your boss, not your friends, not even your spouse, parents or children.

In the end, it’s you.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Vice: The Vice Guide To Getting Through a Mid Twenties Crisis

Lifehacker: How To Overcome Your Quarter-Life Crisis

Forbes: Millennials – This is What Your Quarter-Life Crisis is Telling you

The Guardian: Quarter-Life Crisis – Young, Insecure, Depressed

CNBC: 4 Steps To Break Out Of Your Quarter-Life Crisis

Oliver Robinson: Quarter-Life Crisis – An Overview Of Theory And Research

Oliver Robinson: Emerging adulthood, early adulthood and quarter-life crisis: Updating Erikson for the 21st Century

Mark Manson: FOMO Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Instagram