The quarter-life crisis. What is it and have we felt it?
For many of us, yes. According to a LinkedIn Blog post, 75% of 25-33 year olds have experienced a quarter-life crisis of some kind.
As we go through life, you might find that there’s a crisis where we hit 25% of our life expectancy, 50% and 75%, or the three-quarter life crisis.
So, yes, there’s a lot of crises. Although the majority of us as Suffolk students are not between the ages of 25 and 33, some of us may have already had our own quarter-life crisis, or at least some type of crisis before it.
As we register for classes this week — some of us for the last time — or as some of us go on to graduate early this winter, our program evaluations may read that we don’t need any credits left to graduate, or we need very few.
To some of us, that may be terrifying. A large portion of college students end up changing their majors and changing their path sometime in college. As we sit in classes that cover topics within our current majors, many of us may find that we don’t enjoy what we thought we did and soon we’re at a loss for what our passions, goals and moral compasses consist of.
But fear not. If you or someone you know is going through a transitional period this fall — whether they’re questioning their academic and professional goals, whether it’s a new relationship or they’re embarking on a new soul search — nobody is alone in this venture.
The Suffolk Journal does not have the answer to these problems. But what’s important is self discovery, taking time to do the things and activities that help you distance yourself from your current stress and surrounding yourself with people that know you well, sometimes even better than you know yourself. Many of our staff members, too, have had some type of existential crisis at some point in our time here. Many of us have changed paths ourselves.
Let it be known that decisions that you make now matter in the future. What helps many of us as lost and indecisive college students guide our decisions depends on the answers to the following questions: where do you want to be one, five, even ten years from now? When you take away the complexity of jobs, internships, program evaluations and more, what is it you actually want to accomplish? What mark do you want to leave on this world when you leave it?
Decisions that you make in college right now matter. If you find yourself losing motivation as the days of 2019 dwindle away and as the semester has passed its halfway mark, remember that even though the day by day does not seem to mean much, all the things you are doing right now matter.
And no matter how you answer the important questions you may be faced to ask yourself, just know that it’s never easy. Some people go on throughout life never finding out what they want to do and some people work jobs their entire lives they did not even enjoy.
But the decisions we make now, and the fact that we’re able to face these tough decisions with the peace of mind of knowing we aren’t weak or crazy for being confused is crucial.
That club you are in, the classmate you got a coffee with, that super long research paper that you worked really hard on, visiting a professor you have not seen in a while; all these things matter and you will get through it.
The experiences and memories that you make now are helping you grow as a person and even though it might seem as if you will not get through your quarter life crisis, you will use these experiences for the next 75% of your life.
— The Suffolk Journal Staff
