Everyone knows about the Midlife Crisis. Your kids are grown up and moved out, you have the rest of your life to yourself, but you realize you are finally getting “old.” At this point, many people panic. They make a big rash decision and do something wild to make themselves feel young again. They buy a fancy sports car or move somewhere exciting, but find themselves going back to normal a short while later.
Less famous, but still just as real is the Quarter Life Crisis. You are just starting off in your chosen career, or maybe you have not even found a career yet. You look at the giant, tsunami-like wave of student debt and life decisions that is about to crash down on you, and you freak out. A quarter life crisis does not usually come with any rash decision-making (as you can’t fiscally afford it), but rather just a sense of crushing doom that weighs on you until your life gets sorted out.
The third, even earlier crisis is one that is rarely even thought of, much less discussed. This is the Pre-Quarter Life Crisis. You are just leaving high school or home, or even just starting out in the real world. Whether you are in college or starting right away with a job, the Pre-Quarter Life crisis will sneak up on you. Because up until now all of your choices have been made for you. Everyone goes through the same levels of schooling, up through high school, then they graduate. Yay, congrats, you did it! … Now what? Here is when you have to make your first real decisions, and here is when the responsibility sets in. You pick your school and go off on your own, and then at last it hits you that you have your whole life ahead of you. And none of it is pre-planned.
You have to figure it all out on your own from now on. Pick a major. Get a job. Get internships and get your foot in the door with a career. But how?? There is no manual for this. What if you pick the wrong field? What if you hate it? What if you can never find a job and you end up stuck in your parents’ basement for eternity? What if, what if, what if? These are decisions that will define the rest of your life, and everyone wants you to make them right now. But there is something they aren’t telling you.
None of it matters. You can choose and rechoose your career path. You can decide a thousand different ways and still change your mind. Just because it would be simpler to know what you’re doing with your life now, doesn’t mean that is the only way. The scary part of being this age is that you know that your whole life is ahead of you. But the great part about being this age is that your whole life is ahead of you. You have so much time to make so many mistakes and bad decisions that you can rectify later. You have your whole life for that.
Just because everyone wants you to have your life figured out now doesn’t mean you have to. Trust me, there’s time for everything.
