Is Gen Z going through a quarter-life crisis?
An article from The Atlantic points out a puzzling gap between how old we are and how old we think we are. To elaborate: I may be 25, but in my head, I’m an idealistic and energetic college sophomore. Many people my age might provide a similar answer. While studies say this is a sign of optimism—that we “envision many generative years ahead of [us], and that [we] will not be written off”—I’m sure we can agree that this gives us a sense of hopelessness.
Like me, my fellow Gen Zs find themselves at a crossroads. We’re grappling with rising job insecurity, rapid technological shifts, political conflicts, and looming climate disasters on top of our personal problems. Yet, we feel less equipped than ever to handle them: a phenomenon normally described as the quarter-life crisis. Introduced by the lucrative self-help industry at the turn of the millennium, this refers to “young adults’ period of anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt” as they transition to a new life stage.
We are not the first demographic to undergo such a phase. The midlife crisis, its more popular predecessor, has long inspired career pivots, impulse purchases, and extramarital affairs. Millennials are even responsible for changing the age of reassessment from 40 to 25. And yet, none of them can say they completely relate to Gen Z’s unique set of unfortunate circumstances.
As usual, the pandemic is to blame. COVID-19 didn’t just rob us of our youth; it eroded the concept of traditional milestones and timelines. Our childhood dreams—a product of parental expectations and media reinforcement—are suddenly not within our reach. This does not bode well for our generation, which sees our careers as a longstanding source of purpose.
“Making a meaningful impact and contribution to society is important, but not everyone gets a chance to do work where they feel they are able to achieve this,” Elizha Corpus, a culture transformation coach with a background in psychology, explains to PhilSTAR L!fe. “When there’s a disconnect between what young people value and what their environments reinforce, it can lead to frustration, hopelessness, or even disillusionment.”
There’s also much to be said about growing up on and with social media. Our elders only had to compare what they wanted to be and where they actually were, but we now also contend with where everyone else is and what they could possibly have to say about our position in life.
“For Gen Zs who are still in the process of navigating early adulthood, they may not yet have the full mental, emotional capacity to analyze everything coming at us all at the same time,” Corpus tells L!fe. She adds that while we’ve proven to be quite resourceful in using social media for learning, connection, and even advocacy, “it's still difficult to filter the noise from truly useful and valuable information.”
One quick look through my Facebook feed already prescribes a multiplicity of possible paths. I see some batchmates who are between jobs and others in middle management positions; some who have yet to enter a relationship and others who are already married with kids. Rather than empower us, we can’t help but feel overwhelmed by our options and disappointed in our past selves and the dreams they harbored.
While those who came before us will never really know exactly what we’re up against, it’s comforting to remember that they’ve survived similar situations. Martin, a retired Boomer, found himself in a rut and left his two-decade banking stint. Tina, a Gen Xer accountant, landed herself in deep financial trouble at 44, forcing her into early retirement and leading to a rough patch in her relationship. Millennial editor Therese thought she could circumvent this challenge by implementing the right systems and routines, only to end up in an indefinite period of burnout.
These stories are not the kind we’ll find on online platforms, which are stripped of necessary nuance and built for the best moments. Instead of constantly looking to other people’s standards of success, Martin recommends recentering the most important character in our lives: ourselves.
“Anyone who finds themselves stuck will benefit from a break: whether it’s to reflect on what it is we really want, or recharge as we prepare for the long journey ahead,” he shares with L!fe.
Corpus backs this up, suggesting that we view milestones as values-based, rather than time-based: “Rather than set that we should be married by 30, for example, we must interrogate what we hold dear at this stage of our lives and what we can realistically do as an immediate next step.”
Amid these systemic sources of instability, it pays to have something, anything to anchor us. For Tina, it was her faith. “I was a religious person then, yet did not seem to practice my faith. But with my life in a complete mess, I had no one to turn to but God,” she said. Upon the advice of her cousin-in-law, she joined support groups in her Christian church and made weekly pilgrimages to the Prayer Mountain. This could also look like exercise routines we enjoy, check-in calls with our support system, or journaling sessions right before we go to sleep—basically any ritual that allows us to regain some semblance of control.
Most importantly, we must accept that the quarter-life crisis isn’t something that just neatly wraps itself up once we hit our thirties. Therese tells L!fe that she doesn’t have any foolproof advice for navigating this situation, and that is a valuable lesson in itself: “The biggest learning for me is that there’s no blanket solution to any of these things. The sooner you accept that there will be bumps along the way, the more mentally prepared you’ll be to solve them as they come.” Today, she is proud to take things not even day by day, but hour by hour.
At the risk of sounding cliché, it’s true. In the age of instant gratification and online curation, it’s been most freeing for me to accept that my path was never supposed to be modeled after another’s: that everything I went through happened at my own pace, when I was ready to face them. (Yes, even if my mind tricks me into thinking I’m younger and less experienced than I actually am.) My life may be messy and muddled, but it’s mine and that’s all that matters.