Quarter-life crisis confessions

Twenty:

A number equal to 2 times 10, equal to 4 times 5, and equal to RUN.

I have friends who are already married with babies, friends who are studying or traveling around the world. I have other friends that are completely independent, some of us have jobs but still live with our parents to save in rent and have all the comforts that come with it, and the rest just don’t know WTF is happening with their life. Probably most of us are still figuring out some shit, and learning out of life in our own process.

We have so many choices. Any decision you make can change your life path completely. It’s nice and fun to have that freedom, but it’s terrifying at the same time. It’s hard to pick a path and stick to it when the possibilities are endless. Even though we are young, full of energy, and hopes, figuring out life is the ultimate quarter life crisis.

Leaving the existential crisis aside, let’s talk about the other ’20s.

2020:

• Infectious disease.
• The world goes into lockdown.
• The IMF says it expects the world economy to shrink 3% → the worst contraction since the Great Depression.
• Hong Kong Protests.
• Australia declares a state of disaster due to large bushfires that killed as many as 500 million animals.
• Second Libyan civil war.
• Persian Gulf crisis → 56 people killed, over 200 injured.
• Yemeni civil war.
• Stock market crash.
• Latin America’s social outbreak.
• Daily Airstrikes in Myanmar (month of April).
• Oil prices reach a record low.
• China’s concentration camps.
• India-China border crisis.
• Cyclone Amphan makes landfall in eastern India and Bangladesh, killing over 100 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 4 million others. It causes over US$13 billion in damage.
• Flight PK8303 crashes in Pakistan, killing 97 of the 99 total people on board and injuring dozens on the ground.
• The killing of George Floyd.
• Protests in the US.
• The bankruptcy of several airlines and different businesses all around the world due to Covid19.
• Thousands of people without jobs.
• The World Health Organization reports six new cases of Ebola.
• The reappearance of the Bubonic Plague.
• A 7.5-magnitude earthquake strikes the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Flooding of the Brahmaputra River → kills 189, leaves 4 million homeless in India and Nepal.
• Two explosions caused by unsafely stored ammonium nitrate in Beirut → over 220 deaths, and thousands injured. Damage is estimated at $10–15 billion, and an estimated 300,000 people are left homeless.

Welcome to the new roaring ’20s. If you thought you were gonna party like gatsby you were absolutely wrong old sport. This is the quarter-life crisis of the 21 century.

Who can figure out life with everything that’s going on? Sorry, but no one. It has just been a shitty year.

To not be such a party pooper, I can also agree that we have still had some good things this year. For example, The celebrity concert to raise money for the COVID-19 pandemic “One World together at home”, or NASA and SpaceX launching the first astronauts from the U.S. since 2011, and Netflix updating their game.

Besides, being 20 has so many perks.

Even though we are officially adults, we don’t have to assume the responsibility of being an adult yet. We can still reach our parents for help and money. When life throws tricky situations, we can count on our parents 100% to be there. Parents will always be there at any age, but in our 20’s there’s no shame on going to them as their “babies”. Being vulnerable in front of them feels more natural than for instance being vulnerable at 40. Also, there’s no rush for you to move out. You can still live with your parents and save in rent, food, internet, phone, etc.

The money you have you can spend it on yourself. You have more money than what you used to have when you were a teenager, and more freedom to spend it in whatever you want. You don’t have the responsibility to pay a mortgage, your kid’s school, etc. You can always treat yourself, travel, invest, or simply save it for some rainy days and to plan your future.

The best part of being in your 20’s, is being young and beautiful. You get to feel great about yourself. You have the energy to do everything. You can wear anything you want, be unique, and have your own style. This is the age when we finish developing our personality without the social pressures we were raised in as kids and teenagers. We get to choose our friends, move in the circles we want to move, and even our worst looking days (at this age) are our best looking days.

As you can see, I have a love/hate relationship with this number. We are mature, but still not mature enough to think about what we want to do despite finishing college. We are equally sick of going out and staying home. Hangovers get worse every year, but you still have the energy to go out the next day. You get periods where you are the most social person ever and others that you just want to stay home and don’t see anyone.

When you are a teenager you are always looking forward to getting to this age, and you listen to your old ones looking back and saying it was the best time of their life. So you start building up these expectations about getting to this age. When you finally get there, it’s actually not as great as you thought, but at the same time is everything you expected.

So yeah, that’s my quarter-life crisis confession.

One day at a time.