What it’s like to have a quarter-life crisis amidst a health crisis?
Quarter-life is weird. It makes you feel things you don’t want to feel. It makes you question everything up to this point in your life — have you done enough, have you lived well, have you made an impact, or worse, are you truly happy?
What’s made things even worse than you could imagine is having a quarter-life crisis in the midst of a health crisis all because of this pandemic. For a fact, the combination of these two had taken a great toll on our well-being. Day after day while in the middle of our existential pondering, our mental health is also deteriorating.
Is there really the best way to cope with these deadly combos? Probably yes, or maybe there’s none. Nevertheless, this phase in our life is here to stay for some time, and we might as well learn a thing or two from this.
Here are the things I learned at twenty-five. Here are some life lessons I gained from my quarter-life.
(1) Family comes first.
The world may turn its back on you but it is always so reassuring that you’ve got a family whom you can always go back to. In our lifetime, we may get to meet a lot of people and circumstances may change just as we do, but one thing is certain — we start and end with family.
(2) Dare to dream new dreams.
I have always got this question at the back of my head, what if you’ve got a dream that you’ve been working on so hard and then you finally reached that dream, would you just be happy and settle with it or would you dare to dream new dreams? What if after all the hard work you put into that dream, you realized that you want to do something more…attain something else — would you be brave enough to start all over? I dare to say, dream again! Dream all over again and relive that feeling of anticipation and excitement. Take courage! Do it until you no longer feel like dreaming anymore because for once you already feel complete.
(3) Read books… read lots of them!
Just when you thought that you know all the things that you need to know in life — its complexities and practical ways of going through it, chances are, you might get it all wrong and have stagnated in your own bubble of reality. Read more! Read books, articles, biographies, anecdotes, etc. As a popular quote goes, “a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… the man who never reads lives only one.”
(4) Be spontaneous.
Growing up, I was told how to live according to a plan — that by this age, I should be like this, or that by that age I should already have that. A lot of voices kept on dictating around me — from parents, peers, and especially society. Walking without a plan for most people means walking astray. I come to realize that it is alright to go with the flow and celebrate one’s spontaneity. At twenty-five, I learned that it is okay to be doing the “good kind of crazy” things. We need randomness, mess, uncertainty, adventures, or even traumatic episodes in our life. For all it’s worth, things like these make life more meaningful and worth living.
(5) Save and invest early on in life.
One of the most useful and practical things I learned at twenty-five is how to properly manage your personal finance. While it is true that at this point in our lives, some of our peers are enjoying the “best” of their lives, splurging on expensive meals and extravagant purchases, this age is the starting point of our preparation for our retirement. This may sound a bit technical to some but ponder on this, a peso today is worth more than a peso tomorrow. Simply put, the purchasing power of our money is inversely proportional to the length of time further in the future. Inflation, that’s why! I suggest investing in mutual funds, stock market, bonds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), real estate, or at least a high yield savings account. Try the digital banks which offer higher interest rates unlike the 0.25% interest per annum that we get on average on most traditional banks. Look further into the future and think of your retirement. Invest and diversify but always ensure to do your due diligence in researching before investing or venturing into something.
(6) Leave ego behind.
It took some time before I realize that ego is one’s ultimate enemy. We might not realize it, but in most of our dealings with other people, we fed the hunger of our ego in one way or another. It can sway us and it can even ruin us. Ego is the reason why we waste our precious life and energy doing things we don’t like, to prove ourselves to people we don’t respect, and to get things we don’t truly want. Most of the time, our ego deludes us and gets the better of us.
(7) Protect your peace of mind.
Cliche as it sounds but it's true: if something costs your peace, then it is too high of a price to pay. Never waste your valuable time or mental peace of mind on the affairs of other people. Do not ever let yourself get dragged into other people’s drama. Half of your mastery of yourself and the power you hold within comes from what you do not involve yourself in.
(8) Freedom is predicated on privacy.
There will come a point in your life wherein you will feel “done” with all the prying other people around you concern themselves in your personal life. I have come to appreciate privacy more than ever at my age. Remember this: you do not owe anyone an explanation of your decisions in life. You do not owe anyone an update on what you are up to. Freedom is predicated on privacy and it is a solid ground for lasting peace of mind.
(9) Walk slowly and you’ll go far.
In our fast-paced world where we live, everything happens almost very quickly and so suddenly. However, we must always bear in mind that being in a hurry is inversely proportional to the quality of life. Let’s face it, we seldom live in the present and appreciate a moment for what it’s worth because we are so caught up with our next big step, not even realizing that we are right in the middle of what was once something that we are looking forward to. Whenever we leave urgency behind, our life, relationships and time take on a deeper and fuller meaning.
(10) Honor your timeline.
Finally and perhaps one of the most important lessons that quarter-life has taught me is to honor my timeline. I have realized that the biggest source of unhappiness for any person in this world is comparison. We always depend on our definition of success relative to other people’s achievements. We set the wrong metric of success in life and that is the most unfair thing we can do to ourselves. We should start comparing ourselves and our timeline with other people. Their path is different from ours. We should stop pressuring ourselves into attaining certain milestones at a certain age. We are completely different. We should honor our timeline and celebrate our individuality.
To be perfectly honest, a quarter-life crisis amidst a pandemic is no easy task to fathom at all. Quarter-life alone disturbs us down to our core, what more during this global health crisis, right? However, I realize that the young generation at my age is more than resilient. We are anti-fragile. We thrive and we go even stronger amidst whatever challenges that life throws at us.
