There comes a time when ideas of future jobs and careers come and just punch you in the face. It's like an ambush of questioning your life's decisions. Almost as if everything you've been doing in college isn't worth it and you suddenly want to switch careers because your having second thoughts on the career you originally wanted. 

I refer to this beautiful expression of panic as "the quarter life crisis." Yes, it's like a mid-life crisis for adults who aren't actually adults yet. Plus, you'll probably have more than one of these.

After walking around campus and asking if other students have experienced this same thing, the typical response was "ah yep, I've been there. Actually, I still don't know what I'm doing with my life."

I've found that this type of crisis is common in young adults in their early 20's that are close to/are graduating college. And if you've never experienced this crisis...well good for you, your life is more organized than mine.

Common side affects of the quarter life crisis are as follows: sleeping to avoid problems; repeatedly changing clothing styles and then throwing away your whole wardrobe entirely; staying up until 3am thinking about how all of your life choices are wrong and that your life is going no where; seriously considering dropping out and living in a van with 3 dogs; switching majors/career paths/career goals/jobs/getting more jobs; dying your hair.

But in all honesty, who doesn't go through periods of questioning life and what the future holds? I know it's okay to not know where I'll be in 10-20 years. I know life changes, people change, and not everything can be planned. But the idea of not knowing is the thing that scares me the hell out of me. Being the Type A kind of personality, I feel the need to plan out my life. I want to know who I'm going to marry. I want to know where I'll be working when I'm 30. I want to know how many kids I'm going to have and what kind of house I'll end up living in. 

The biggest fear behind my quarter life crisis is fear of failure and regret. My biggest fear is ending up in a job that I hate. Another fear of mine is only working a certain job to make ends meet. Because of these fears, I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to be as successful as I can be. I know it's not a realistic mentality and there's no way to predict life, yet what if I don't end up being proud of myself in the future?

But I've grown to be okay with not knowing. I've learned to be excited about the future and where I'm headed. Not knowing what's in the future is what makes it fun. While I'm forced to make a lot of decisions at this age, I know that in the next 10-20 years, I won't even remember half the decisions I made in college. Who knows, I might even be on a path directly opposite of what I intended. As long as I'm genuinely happy and healthy in the future, that's what matters. But what do you think? Have you been through this type of crisis before? Are you currently in this quarter life crisis?