Mind Over Does This Even Matter?
Turning 25 is both a huge milestone and a huge burden. I remember thinking in 4th grade that 25 would be an ideal age to have a husband and a daughter who lived with me in a nice little house with a fence from which I woke each morning after cooking a delicious yet healthy breakfast to drive down country roads to my country job as the village veterinarian. By then I was beaming with ego as I entered “double digits” at the ripe age of 10. In reality I had no idea what the future would hold but I sure as hell liked to dream.
Fast-forward 15 years and here I am: On the cusp of 26, almost a full year of being that oh so coveted age of 25 behind me. I’m not married. I have no children (or any desire to think of having any. Ever. Gross.) I live with my boyfriend’s parents and use my trusty B.F.A. to work from home. I am, however, in the midst of battling what is commonly known as the quarter-life crisis.
You may have heard of it. Maybe you’ve even been through it. Or perhaps, like me, you’re fighting to not be mind-fucked daily by its persnickety ways. It’s a thing that happens when you turn 25 (or sooner if you’re so lucky) that makes you re-evaluate your entire life up until this very moment. The word neurotic comes to mind. Also bat-shit crazy. Because for the first time probably ever, you’re realizing your own mortality. Questions start popping up like,
“What am I doing with my life?”
“Should I quit my job?”
“Will I be stuck here forever?”
“Is this it?”
And the most gut-wrenching of all,
“Does what I’m doing even matter?”
For a lot of people, their job defines them. We’re taught at a very young age that we should decide our purpose in life and go after it, steadfast and headstrong. (Cue every little girl's white-picket-fence daydream). We go on to be stereotyped in high school. We choose a silo (major) in college. All to become a cog in the Corporate America machine. And for most of us, that’s what life is all about—punching the clock and getting paid.
But I’ve always been an against-the-grain kind of person. As I grew older, I noticed I got bored easily. I became overtly cynical. Resting bitch face became a full-on personality trait. I didn’t understand how people could possibly be content doing the same damn thing every day and call it a career. For all intents and purposes, I vowed to never be one of them. I wanted more. Fortunately, being a freelance writer for the past year left me with a lot of time on my hands to ponder the ins and outs of my own true happiness and simultaneously deal with a looming quarter-life crisis. Ironically it made weeding through the garden of 25-and-existentially-challenged remarkably easier.
I started by focusing on what I really loved to do: write. Short stories, blog posts like this one, tweets, quips and banter. But working in advertising doesn't exactly allow the kind of raw truth, emotion, or feeling I wanted people to read. Every tagline felt so forced. All the sentences polluted with branded jargon. So, when I finally sat down and let my true voice out onto the page (on my own accord, from my own mind), it all started to make sense. Real, unadulterated sense. People reading my words said it spoke to them. It resonated. It inspired. There it was. The thing I did that mattered. Just like that.
There’s something really special about tapping into something you can do effortlessly, without a title after your name, without worrying what other people think, without tracking billable hours or adhering to a scope mapped out by people with fancy email signatures. All those things do is cage you. Sure, there’s always the hope of people being “open to ideas” or exploring “new direction” or the very rarely seen “bit of creative freedom”, but in the end, all you really hear yourself saying is, “Who cares?”
I know there are different definitions of what “matters” in life. It’s entirely subjective. But I think the key to overcoming any kind of hyper-life crisis is this: Find what it is that makes you get up in the morning and feel truly satisfied at the end of the day and run with it. Maybe it’s making people laugh. Maybe it’s taking care of others. Maybe, like me, it’s telling stories that mean something. When you find it, don't ever let it go. It'll make everything seem worth it in the end. And if you’re one of those people who actually enjoy all that paper pushing, Godspeed.