You Graduate College Next Month, Now What?: A Guide to Dealing with Your Quarter-Life Crisis
You’ve probably heard of a midlife crisis which is typically coined by impulsively buying a Ferrari or starting a YouTube channel at age 50. But as it turns out, young adults have their own version of this, and it's called the quarter-life crisis; specifically those who are about to graduate college.
Source: Yale Daily News
There are two goals during your quarter-life: stability and safety and meaning and purpose. There is not a lot of clarity after graduating college, it’s a transition from dependence in childhood to independence in adulthood.
The first phase of quarter-life is establishing who you are as an independent person and that can mean unlearning so many things you were taught as a child. This transition is hard for everyone. There is an expectation that you have to land a job at 22 and then climb the ladder from there. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you view this), that just isn’t the case for many.
You’re also expected to manage no breaks after coming out of an internalized institution where you had three months off your whole life, and now suddenly boom: you work, work and work until you can’t anymore.
When you enter the job market or career world, you essentially have no time to focus on the things you are passionate about or very little time to travel and explore the “real world.” The idea of working for the rest of your life can be gruesome and add ongoing perpetual stress to your life.
Source: LipStiq
Psychotherapist Satya Doyle Byock devotes her life’s work to helping those between adolescence and adulthood who are going through the “quarter-life.” She reveals that “68% of college students experience overwhelming emotions of anxiety during and after graduating college.”
The good news in all of this? It’s not you, it’s the system.
We’ve grown up in a society where patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy are handling adulthood as a fixed situation. The systems in place have taught us that your job is to get a job, get married, have kids, and never want more.
If you feel like you can relate to this, we have some tips on how you can ease your way through the quarter-life crisis.
how to cope with a quarter life crisis
Reflect and Release
It’s easy to lie to ourselves and say that everything’s okay, but in order to really start feeling better, we have to be honest with ourselves about how we’re really feeling. We really challenge you to dig deep and reflect on the emotions you are confused about. Get your journal and give yourself space to write down your raw thoughts. In this reflection, you will be able to plant new seeds and really grow roots.
Source: Pinterest
Clarify
It’s one thing to reflect and really meet yourself where you’re at with your emotions. And it’s another to ask yourself, “what do I wanna do now?” Once you reach adulthood, it’s up to you to decide what values you want to uphold, let go of, and what new values you want to take on. These values determine what is important to you and essentially set up the way you live and work.
Source: LipStiq
Set up options
Start to brainstorm options that align with your values and visualize your life in each of the options you come up with. What are the pros and cons of each? What are the ways they align with your values? Once you narrowed down options, begin to research ones that may line up with what you want.
Source: Pinterest
At the end of the day, the complexity of this process is really beautiful. To begin feeling more hopeful, you need to start trusting yourself. We all go through some sort of crisis throughout our lives, and it is important to make sure you know that you’re never alone.
Source: Pinterest