Quarter-Life Crisis
“A period of intense soul-searching and stress
occurring in your mid-20s to early 30s.”
Jules Schroeder | “Millennials, This Is What Your Quarter-Life Crisis Is Telling You” | Forbes
Welcome to my D.C. apartment!
There’s a party tonight, and you’re invited. I’m turning 25 and while we drink sparkling cider to my accomplishments, it’s also time to be honest.
I’m having a quarter-life crisis, and you are, too.
So come on in, let’s all crowd into my little, gentrified apartment in Washington, D.C.
You happen to take a look around my humble home and instantly your eyes land on my makeshift shrine of an international pop sensation. On the table lies the 25th anniversary edition of his greatest-selling record and the best-selling album by any artist of all time.
You pick it up.
In 1982, this album slapped. It still does in 2021.
While I’m busy entertaining the rest of the guests, you open a door in my house like the awfully nosy guest you are, and you enter my room.
There’s another small shrine in the windowsill. There’s a 2020 NBA Championship hat with golden sparkles on the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy on the side. There’s another championship hat underneath—a 2016 NBA Championship hat. You notice that there’s also a #23 jersey that sits on the back of my chair.
You take it all in.
And you jump outside of your skin when I enter the room.
“Hey! Didn’t notice you come in here,” I say, but deep down, I knew you’d ease away from the crowd to explore my sanctuary. Maybe that’s why I invited you to this party, anyway. “These people accomplished so much. I can be a little toxic to myself for feeling like I haven’t done as much as I should have by this age, ya know?”
You nod your head in agreement. We’re twenty-somethings who’ve only been out of college for a few years, and we think we should have it all figured out by now, like our grandparents worked and sacrificed for us.
But our parents are also Gen X’ers who also expect us to go out there and make something of ourselves.
Well, I’m trying.
“It’s a little difficult to stay hopeful when our world can’t decide if we’re stereotypical, ‘lazy’ Millennials, or digital natives with short attention spans—‘Zoomers,’” I say.
Justin Timberlake & Beyoncé, both born in 1981.
Truth is, we’re neither.
Because today, I’m 25. I’m a part of the generation between older Millennials (think Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake who were born in 1981) and Generation Z (think Chloe x Halle [born in ‘98 and ‘00, respectively], Billie Eilish, who was born in 2001, and many college students today).
We return to my living room and watch as everyone from college catches up. [Don’t worry, in this simulation, there isn’t a threatening pandemic—if you can even remember what life was like around this time a year ago].
“I’m in medical school.”
“Dental school, here!”
“I’m in law school, hoping to fight for my community.”
People start going around the room as if we’re at a misplaced college reunion. What we’re really saying is that we’re going thousands (hundreds of thousands for some of us) of dollars in debt in order to secure a job that we hope brings fulfillment and a chance to serve. Some of us are employed and still feel incomplete.
I say my piece about being a historian who, deep down, wants a deeply creative career in partnership with my longtime girlfriend, Natalia.
But now, it’s your turn.
The small crowd turns to you.
“I-I’m just trying to figure it all out,” you finally say.
The quarter-life crisis differs from the midlife crisis and all other crises having to do with aging, especially for these late-Millennials (1994-1997 ish).
Some of us are looking at crazy student loan debt from attending university...only to graduate from college with little opportunity to find jobs in a pandemic.
Tons of us are living with our parents, challenging ourselves to live a life of minimalism. We’re transitioning to adulthood in a pandemic.
I get it. I’m only 25. The world is my oyster. I’ve only just left the Tutorial Island of life and I’m just starting to get on my way. However, there are some parts of me that are really freaked out by this aging thing.
I feel for those currently grappling with severe anxiety, depression, or even dissatisfaction and boredom with life.
I went toe-to-toe with concepts of happiness, success, and the pursuit of meaning. I’m still, in some ways, fighting that battle.
Be careful, it can tear you apart.
When Meredith Goldstein wrote a piece for the Boston Globe about a quarter-life crisis in 2004, she was referring to the older age Millennials, those who would remember the Challenger explosion, Reagan’s America, the heights of Michael Jackson & Whitney Houston’s careers, the War on Crime, and an increasingly anxious world post-September 11th, 2001.
In 2021, these adults are entering their 40s, having seen the world accelerate towards digital nativity and constant threats to security. The later-Millennials, however, are searching for meaning in the midst of civil unrest and a pandemic. Trying to navigate this world with no true destination is amongst the most frustrating experiences to trudge through.
When you’re sitting alone in your room like I’ve been for the last few years thinking about what’s supposed to be next, you tend to look to people who’ve accomplished great feats at your age. You’re looking for an actual destination—a route to follow, a checklist of rules you can constantly refer to...maybe even a list of answers to rattle off when your friends and family fire off questions while you sit in the car or at the dinner table.
It’s okay to be twenty-five, twenty-something, or even thirty-something and not yet find fulfillment.
It’s also okay to find fulfillment outside of your career and your degree track.
I’m learning to find fulfillment in the everyday “spark” of life and the journey it takes me on.
So, when they ask you what you want to do with the rest of your life or your degree, don’t go into crisis mode!
When I contemplate, some special individuals come to mind.
24 is a special number in many people’s lives.
Michael Jackson’s iconic “Billie Jean” video
In my brain’s anxious state, I tend to romanticize the experiences of others, some high profile, others just regular people. As a perfectionist workaholic, I romanticize the journeys of the rising stars who went on to have unparalleled careers.
I could talk about the world’s greatest entertainer and his career at length. I’ll spare you.
But Michael Jackson at 24 was on top of the world in a way no one has ever been since 1982-83. The first moonwalk? He was 24. The greatest selling album in music history? 24. Here was a Black man who would become such a powerful force in the entertainment industry for the next 25 years of his life. He reached heights no one ever has, and probably never will.
His life can so easily be romanticized into something it wasn’t. He never had the privacy he craved or people with his best interests in mind. For all intents and purposes, at 24 years of age, Michael was this novelty. There was a magic to him during the mid to late-1980s that is hard to describe (but I didn’t live through this era, so woe is me).
What they don’t tell you is that to achieve an unhealthy amount of greatness, it seems like you have to have a tortured, emotionally deprived life.
But then there’s Kobe Bryant.
At 24, Kobe had won three championships with Shaquille O’Neal and was already considered a possible successor to Michael Jordan (the other MJ of the ‘90s who wasn’t Michael Jackson). Kobe wasn’t yet the Black Mamba, but his fearless dedication to his craft was already showing.
On my 24th birthday, I watched Kobe Bryant’s memorial service—the day was marked by his daughter’s basketball number, 2, and the number Kobe wore for the latter part of his career, 24. A tragic loss of life with several reminders by Nike that you just had to get out there and work as hard as you could and you’d develop a killer Mamba mentality and strike fear into your opponents.
I started watching LeBron James when he was 24 and he looked like a full-grown man to the 13-year-old seeing him for the first time in the 2009 NBA Playoffs. Who was this powerful man with a larger-than-life story and athletic prowess? I watched the way he steamrolled through teams like a train as he’d dunk on anyone in his way. He’d just earned his first MVP. I’ve been rolling with him ever since.
“That’s what 24 is like?” I thought.
Comparison kills, they say.
The first true memories I have of my mother are when she was 24, too. I remember her driving me to my birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese somewhere in southwest Michigan—planning birthday parties for me when she was trying to finish her bachelor’s degree. Somehow, she managed her time well enough to seem so successful while never letting me see how stressed out she probably was. Mom at 24 was crazy powerful. She still is at... (I’m not telling you my mother’s age).
So what was my 24th year, my golden year, supposed to look like?
It’s so easy to be like, “But what am I doing right now?” Am I wasting my time?”
This transition period for young adults can be quite arduous. My experience, I think, has been easier than most. I dealt with my existentialism while traveling abroad in Europe—the last year before a pandemic wreaked havoc.
But even after I was accepted into Howard University to start work on my Ph.D in United States history (even though I applied for a Master’s instead—I’m definitely not complaining), I still wondered what was next.
In one of my absolute favorite movies of the last few years, Disney and Pixar’s “Soul,” a man realizes he’s dissatisfied with life and spends most of it waiting for his big break—his moment to “arrive,” if you will. The movie illustrates one man’s journey to help a “difficult” person find their spark, and in turn, he finds his own when he is given a second chance at life.
So here I am in 2021. I’ve completed a perfect semester at the nation’s best school for my field and research interests, yet every now and then, I feel a little lost. I worked so intensely to get here, but it’s easy to just say, “Is that it? Is this the peak of my life experience?”
Grandad and me in 2008.
It’s painful knowing that the very first person I told when I was accepted to HU is peacefully resting in a grave in the hills of Georgia. Last year, Grandad gave me his familiar toothy grin when I came down the stairs for my birthday breakfast. 10 years ago, he did things like taking me to Olive Garden and giving me an Orlando Magic Dwight Howard T-shirt. 20 years ago, he came to Mrs. Clemons’s preschool classroom and surprised me with the strawberry ice cream I begged him for.
This is the first birthday where I won’t receive his familiar FaceTime call or birthday text.
Aging after the death of a loved one is a strange process. Not being the same age as I was the last time he saw me is some kind of signal that life continues to go on without that person you held so dear. It’s a part of my anxiety around aging. You wish for the world to stop and for you to have a chance to mourn and breathe.
Maybe my Enneagram 4w3 is showing, but my quarter-life crisis isn’t like what I’ve read. It’s a unique conglomeration of so much leading up to this moment and I’m trying not to put as much pressure as I once did on a “perfect” birthday or what I’m “supposed” to accomplish.
I’m leaving that in the hands of my Creator.
That doesn’t mean that I’m sitting around waiting for inspiration to hit or for one of my projects to be the next big thing.
It means I’ll continue to work and do the things that bring me joy and be thankful for each year I get.
So, when they ask you, young twenty-something, what you’re doing with your life and what’s coming next, respond in the best way you can, but leave it open-ended. There’s so much you’ve probably dreamed about doing and experiencing. So much life left to live.
After all, this is my birthday party, we’re celebrating today.
Your time is coming, but maybe your best season has already arrived.
Live in it.
