How did you deal with your quarter life/career crisis?

12 comments

1. I believe that anyone looking for fulfillment from their career is pumping the wrong well. Work isn’t supposed to be fulfilling. It’s supposed to earn money. Do whatever you can to separate those two things in your mind.

   I would be very nervous about joining the military at this moment in history.

   Looking back, 27 isn’t as young as it feels. I highly recommend that you find a career with a stable salary, health benefits, and a retirement plan. You’ll need that if you want to start a family. Camping and hiking will be a lot more fun if you’re not worrying about what will happen if you sprain your ankle.

   Good luck.

2. I am 32 and in the middle of this crisis. I… started learning programming, even if I am not sure that I will switch careers. I am an architect, that stopped being happy with designing buildings – too much stress for too low pay.

   I went into depression, went to therapy (did not help), got meds from psychiatrist (helps), and now I am not so anxious but still not sure what do I want…

3. You’re going to choose your regrets.

   Career-wise I decided where the juice was no longer worth the squeeze, and I pulled over there. And it’s fucking great.

   I found some of my bullshit and I made peace with it too. Own up to your faults.

   I think the military can give you a good springboard elsewhere. If you were my son I’d give you shit about special forces. Are you a hot head who needs to prove something? Do you want to learn about killing? For what? To get out and be a cop or security guard? I know – you’ll be John Wick! What’s the goal here? Do you like the VA? How about your joints and back? I was hoping you’d say some shit about medicine or cyber. Besides…you’re a little old by now for commando shit.

   Edit: I can DM you some spicy posts from r/combatfootage. Brutal grenade drops from drones. Drones flying into people. Let me know.

   Anyways – I don’t think we get many chances to seriously change careers. It doesn’t need to be gratifying. It’s nice if it uses your gifts and pays you enough to do what you want in your free time. Figure out if you want kids. Be a good partner to someone. It’s rewarding. Definitely be careful about who you do those things with.

4. I went to OCS, got told I wouldn’t be able to fly, DOR’d, and quickly realized how much I actually love the career I’ve had so far.

5. Dunno, it’s ongoing, I’ll get back to you in a couple months.

6. At 25, I was working at a government mental institution and I freaked out when I figured out that the old boys at work who lived just getting-by simple lives were my future if I didn’t do something. So while pacing back and forth on the front deck of my apartment building, with the help of some friends I ciphered out a 5 year plan to change my life, with the understanding that it may be no better but at least I tried. I called a drilling company the next morning and was told to just show up a couple provinces over after my two weeks notice was up.

   My plan was to save up enough for my helicopter licence, or find a trade I liked. After working on the rigs for a while and talking to helicopter pilots, I decided that being a helicopter pilot would be too expensive and the opportunities for non military pilots weren’t great. I ended up working with some millwrights and liked what they did, and what they got paid and definitely how much better they were treated. After three years I had a pile of cash set aside and went and took my pre-employment. I got a job offer while in school, from my teachers brother in law who was the CEO of a construction company. It paid okay, but the consistency of work was very attractive for a second level apprentice. Once I got my journeyman ticket in a few years, I found a cozy maintenance job. That late night birthday freak out was my most productive anxiety fuelled action and set my life on its path to where I am today. Best decision I ever made.

7. I’m a weirdo. I change careers every six or seven years. I get bored with a subject, and my brain demands new stuff for me to be happy. I’m in process of starting what should be my last career until retirement.

8. I chose something else that interested me. I was a cook in the restaurant industry, tried many different jobs, and then decided to become a truck driver. I went to trucking school, worked at a job for 8 months and decided that wasn’t the life I wanted either. Then I worked in Legal Cannabis for a couple of years, got tired of that and am now going back to college to become a therapist, hopefully. Or something else office-oriented with regular hours.

   This has been the last 10ish years of my life and I’m 37 if that helps.

   The most helpful advice I have heard for work is: Choose your suffering. Every job has some aspect of suffering and tedious bullshit that you must do daily. Pro athletes have to do hours of work at the gym daily with hundreds of basic reps. Office work you have to deal with back pain from sitting in a chair every day for 8 hours. Authors have to grind out words page after page until they hit their word count for a book, then edit, revise, and rewrite, and have an editor read to see if its marketable.

   What annoying or tedious stuff could you do every day while still able to work that career? No job or work is perfect and even the most desired jobs have aspects that are difficult.

9. You only got this life to make the best of it. If you want to take a shot at the military, this is like the best chance you have to get into it given they are hurting for good people and not making recruiting goals. I joined at 18. It was the best and worst decision I’ve made. Very dual sided experience. Dont expect the military to solve anything for your fulfillment though. You’re still you at the core regardless of rank and uniform may say.

   At 33, my quarter life crisis involves motorcycling. Cliche but it scratched the itch. Life really is what you make of it within the power you have.

10. It is worth considering that your late 20’s / early 30’s are probably the best times you’re going to have for going camping, hiking, fishing with your friends as well as meeting someone to settle down with.

    If you spend 10 years in the military, there are still going to be other late 30’s folks that have the time, energy, and willingness to do those things, but there will be far fewer of them. By that time in life most people are real deep in their job, have children if they’re going to have them, and have acclimated to a steady home / family life where most outdoors trips (if any) are with the fam, not the buds.

    Lets say you come back at 37 and have not somehow managed a relationship while you’re in (obviously it’s possible, although the difficulties are notorious). If you meet someone, date a couple years, and it falls apart before you’re married, you’re now 40 and starting over.

    [https://www.statista.com/statistics/241535/percentage-of-childless-women-in-the-us-by-age/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241535/percentage-of-childless-women-in-the-us-by-age/)

    If we are to believe these statistics, 60% of women your age have no children. That number would decline by 2/3rds (i.e. only 1 out of 5 women will have no children). By that point it is worth considering that many of the women your age got that far without them because they don’t want them.

    Assuming you make it in the military and spend 99% of your time in that world, it’ll probably be hard to relate to everyone when you get out. It’s possible that you’ll even be a bit of an oddball (compared to someone who goes in at 18-19 and is in for 4 years, and has the rest of their 20’s to re-acclimate to civilian life).

    It is at least worth considering that conflict and instability will likely continue over the next decade – I would go into the military with the expectation that I would be engaged in such a conflict. I’ll leave that to you to decide how that affects your decision.

    I’m not trying to talk you out of it, just trying to bring up some things you need to consider very carefully. If I was in your position, had credible experience as a photographer, and enjoyed the outdoors, I think I’d try to get work in that world (surely outdoor companies need photos). Failing that it’s worth considering finding something you can do remotely that you don’t hate, affords you a little work life balance and pays decently. Rather than trying to make your job your “thing” – just let it be the thing that pays for your thing.

    Finally, if you have any savings at all, it’s technically possible to just move somewhere you want to live, start doing the outdoorsy stuff you want to do, and just hail mary it. Find work where you can and try to sustain it as long as you possibly can. It seems crazy but I know someone who did this as a rock climber, she was about your age, and it has been almost exactly 10 years and is still managing to make it work. She is out climbing almost constantly. Vanning around a lot, working at a restaurant as often as she can.

11. 18 series is cool, but not conducive to building a family/having any kind of stability. If you really want a challenge and to work with the best, doing the hardest things in the hardest conditions, then that is the path.

    I was convinced I wanted to be a career soldier back in the day and loved it. Didn’t like the OpTempo though. Even though I was regular Army, I was still never home. Left once my stop-loss ended and became a cop. Habe been doing that ever since. Imo, best parts of the military, minus the worst parts. May consider going that route.

12. I think everyone handles their quarter life crisis differently. For me, I came to the revelation that chasing my dreams had essentially killed them. That in trying to make my passions my job, I was no longer passionate about them.

    My big Eureka moment was that I should not be chasing my dreams, I should be chasing opportunities. I put my passions on the back burner, and decided to aim for a job with good work life balance, low stress, and high pay. I wound up going back to school for engineering and landed a sick job making 400% more than I previously had been, with enough free time to persue my passions after work.

    I learned that when you’ve got a job that treats and pays you right, you’ll quickly grow to love it.