Is it possible to have a pre-midlife crisis? Many older folks would laugh and tell their young counterparts that they have it easy or that they’re simply being young and over-dramatic. But, in reality, this may be a real phenomenon. While I’ve created no elaborate study identifying this restlessness plaguing the lives of the youth, I’ve observed the people around me — their thoughts, their fears, their dreams — and we’re all so terrified. We’re terrified of growing up. We’re terrified of failure. We’re terrified of becoming everything we promised ourselves we wouldn’t be.
We’re supposed to be young, and wild, and free, but we’re weighed down with impatience, with fear, and with confusion. Many of us are fearful because of our confusion. It is at this age so many of us don’t know what they want to do with their future. Some do, of course, but some are so utterly torn between doing what they love and doing what their family or friends want them to do. Others are torn between doing what they love and doing what makes the most money. Some are just at a standstill. They have no clue what they’re doing but they feel trapped— trapped in their city, in their school, in their house. Even those that think they know what they want from their future can feel trapped. Thoughts of self-doubt still find a way to engulf their minds.
Another factor of this pre-midlife crisis conundrum is the fear of aging. We’re young and we have the whole world ahead of us. We have futures brighter than any star, sun or moon. Yet, it’s all happening so fast. Life is flashing by and the thought of finally reaching old age is frightening. We all want to stay young and happy, but everything is flying by. I was at Easter dinner with my brother and his best friend when I truly got this dosage of fear. I remember seeing them walk across the stage at their high school graduation and there they were, 27 years old and completely different people from the young and dumb teenagers I always wanted to hang around. But it all happened so fast. And that was the frightening part. The thought that, before I know it, I would be 30 years-old and my life will have flashed before me without me enjoying everything I could. I found myself talking about this with a few of my friends, all for them to have the same sentiments. We were all fearful, terrified actually, that life would pass us by. The posts of peers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook even further perpetuated this idea. However, the problem in itself isn’t aging. The problem is aging and not accomplishing the goals we so desperately desire. We’re told, time and time again, that when we’re 30 years old, our lives are not going to be anything like we’ve imagined; they’re not going to be like anything we’ve predicted. And that’s what’s terrifying. I can preach to the heavens that my goals will be achieved, yet, at the back of my head, the idea that life isn’t going to be how I envision it scares me, and a lot of other Millennials as well.
The 2pac song “Runnin’ (Dying to Live)” has a line in the chorus that always seemed to resonate with me: "why am I dying to live, if I’m just living to die?" Many of us millennials have thought similar to this. We don’t want to just “live to die,” we want to exploit all the pleasantries life has to offer. We’re confronted with such a restlessness, such a need to explore ourselves and the world, that we want to crawl out of the skin we’re trapped in and be and do everything we’ve ever imagined ourselves to be. The future encompasses endless possibilities, and our futures are bright, but the future is unknown. And the thought of all of the possible unknowns that could affect our lives creeps into our brains and torment us. We are, of course, young. We are wild. We are attempting to be free. But even with all of that, we are petrified of the future, of the unknown. We are troubled with the ideas that we aren’t truly living our lives, the way they should be lived. We are haunted by complacency. We are in our pre-midlife crises and I can only imagine what this restlessness will feel like when we hit our actual midlife crises.
