How To Adult: Existential Crisis

 Today is one of those “Have an existential crisis before breakfast days” #lifeofa20something #adulthood

— Anastasia Taber (@anastasiataber) August 11, 2015

Before I get to dating apps (Return of the Dating Dalai? Just as soon as I finish up Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance), I thought a particularly relevant topic would be existential crises. As far as I know, you aren’t doing life right if you manage to bypass these. So if you’re currently experiencing one, perhaps I can offer some perspective and solutions. If anything, I can write this and you can read this and then we cry together over the unfairness of life and recover from our disillusionment by diving headfirst into 90s nostalgia when everything was Nickelodeon and easy.

What we thought adulthood was when we were kids: Eating candy for breakfast. What it actually is: Bills. Bills. Bills. — Anastasia Taber (@anastasiataber) July 17, 2015

Speaking of the 90s, remember when Simba sang, “I just can’t wait to be king”?

We should have taken the Lion King as a warning – Shortly after this musical number, Scar murders Mufasa and Simba spends his adolescence with farting rainforest creatures while everything goes to shit back home.

Basically Disney’s message is: “See? That is what happens when you want to grow up.”

But eventually Simba crawls through the desert and challenges Scar, beats the crap out of him, and marries Nala. All good things. (Except when you consider that Nala is his half-sister?)

When we were kids, adulthood seemed really awesome. “You mean no one will tell me what to do and I can do whatever I want?” It seems our parents skipped going over the bills and back problems part or maybe our brains simply lacked the capacity to comprehend their full weight. Actually when I asked my mom, she said she wanted to make our childhoods as wonderful as possible because she knew what awaited us in adulthood. Thanks, Mom. You da best.

It is worth noting that as a kid, you wish no one would tell you what to do, and as in adult in full existential crisis mode, you wish someone would just tell you what to do. The irony, folks.

Existential Crisis (as defined in this post): When you feel like your life could take off in a million directions, if only you could decide which one to pick. During this period, you may feel your life is without meaning, purpose, or value.

Maybe you fantasize about being anywhere else than where you are. Maybe you are at a fork in the road with your career – you haven’t found your dream job yet; you have unused skills that are important to you; you don’t feel fully valued; you’re restless and unsatisfied. Maybe you feel that way about dating – you are enthused by exactly zero of the options before you or you’re in a relationship with someone who isn’t right enough for you, or you actually have met the one but you’re questioning it because you’re holding out for a perfection that doesn’t exist. (See how similar those last two are? Yeah, relationships are CONFUSING.)

Because of this, you have to rely on your gut, but sometimes your gut likes to fu- mess with you, which gets us this funky equation:

D + SG = EC

Decision needs to be made based on gut feeling + Silent gut = Existential crisis

So solutions?

Location EC:

Let’s face it: Ever single place in the world and on Mars is going to have its pros and cons. Make your pros and cons list, ordered from most important to least important factor. If that doesn’t get you anywhere, write all of your desired locations onto scraps of paper and pull one out of a hat. There you go. That’s where you’re living now.

A mistake people might make is feeling complacent where they are. They want to explore other places but they don’t want to deal with the hassle of moving, of finding a job, and making friends. These things are not impossible, so if you’re single or your partner is willing to move with you, why not? Yes family is a consideration, but if you want to try out somewhere else, you know life isn’t set in stone, right? There’s no future grand wizard who has already written your autobiography and you have to follow it to a T or the whole world will collapse into a black hole.

Career EC:

My dad is a big proponent of “What Color is Your Parachute?” If you think you might want to do something creative-oriented, I suggest “The Artist’s Way.” This book helped me a tremendous amount in that it basically primed my brain to take opportunities to make my novel happen. Dare to dream.

Basically journaling here is your friend. That’s right, taking it back to those Xanga/Live Journal/Open Diary days. The thoughts will be just as angsty, but with a little more significance than when we were 12. There’s nothing wrong with writing your thoughts onto paper to create a visual sequence of what your future life will look like. Need extra inspiration? Create a vision board.

Life Partner EC:

This solution is mainly about perspective. Sometimes even pretty girls don’t get responses to messages they send on dating apps. Each time we go through a breakup, as rough as it is, we learn something new about ourselves and what we want in a partner. If your partner is not fulfilling you, take some time to figure out why. Would open communication resolve it? Is it a dealbreaker?

Unfortunately, you could rationalize every aspect of your EC and still it’s only your gut who makes the call (when it finally decides to speak up). I’m sorry it has to be that way. Just know that in the throes of a seemingly untameable EC:

You are normal and you are not alone. 

Which leads to the most important life truth in this post…

Everyone is lying on social media.

You see a post, it says, “Just made a delicious pumpkin pie with my bae. I love autumn!” *heart emoji eyes*

What they’re not saying: “This morning my dog pooped in my tub.”

No one will ever say the latter online because when we created our profiles we clicked yes on joining the “Our lives are forever awesome” conspiracy. Even though every single one of us has had to clean up poop at some point. It’s #adulthood.

No one wants to be friends with the negative person, I think because in the end we just want to be happy, optimistic people. (But for whatever reason when it comes to news, we’re like, “Yeah! Let’s make that as depressing and rage-inducing as possible!”)  I think a danger to social media is this: “Gah Rachel is gallivanting in Italy and I’m a loser watching Netflix alone in my apartment!” According to older people, your 20s are for figuring out who you are, what you want, and how not to give a shit about what other people think. You never know, Rachel could be in Italy right now watching Netflix alone in her apartment. But she only posts pictures when she ventures outside under the contractual obligations of “Our lives are forever awesome.”

Also keep in mind that older people didn’t have to broadcast their 20s online to everyone they know – they got to delicately skip over that part at high school and college reunions. I am not surprised that I know several people who have deleted their Facebook, only to come back, then delete again. And you bet your lucky stars they’ll be back.

I mean, thank God we don’t have to deal with #being13 on social media, amirite? But in high school and college, we had a lot of friends who liked and commented on stuff, ya know, basically paid attention to our lives. At some point in your post-grad life, you’ll have the following startling realization: “Wow, no one gives a crap what I do with my life.” Sure, you might have some interested followers, but most people DGAF. (Some of us had this realization when we were 13, others of us are still waiting for it to sink in.)

So what are you going to do with your EC – let it crush you or let it free you? The silver lining of ECs is that they don’t last forever. Once they end, you’ll come out the other side a little wiser, a little calmer, and a lot more comfortable with yourself and where you’re heading.

So enjoy it! And get the hell off Facebook.