#12 When You’re in a Quarter-life Crisis


My own doc.

Welcome guys... this time I am gonna talk about ‘a quarter-life crisis’. I wanna talk about this in Indonesian language actually because that is a language we speak here as Indonesian and also as Sundanese in order to understand more although I don’t know will it be read by people but in order to shorten it and train my English skill, I choose English. But wait... have you ever heard what quarter life crisis is before?

More or less based on what I know from many resources it is a period when you ask yourself back on decisions you make, you feel insecure, anxious and uncertain about your life, your future and it can affect to your job, financial and relationship. It generally happens in the range of early '20s to early '30s exactly 25 or in the transition period when we finish our study and we start looking for a job. So the question is have you ever gone through this or you are even going through this now?

So, is it normal?

Calm down! You are not alone. So far it can be said as a normal thing that most of the people experience it. I was born in 1994 so that is why I wanna talk about this. I think dealing with a quarter life doesn’t feel good enough. Why I can say so, is because I have personal experience about this in early 20’s when I was still at the college in facing the last semester. I started suffering for this due to postponed finalization that made me hard enough to move on for the long term. And particularly when my parent wanted me to pursue a carrier as a civil servant, the most desirable job here. Or when I receive so many wedding invitations from my friends and they ask me ‘when will you get married?’. It then becomes a dilemmatic problem for me because not every other’s expectation can be fulfilled. Fortunately, I am somebody who believes that life is not race including in marriage issue. Hey! I am not going to get married just because of social pressure or just because lots of people ask me when am I going to get married. It is not about who is the fastest but it is about who is the exact one. I cannot deny it all but it is no good complaining too much. I don’t want to be thought as if I am the only one who suffers and confuses about life in this world.

Dok. pribadi

Well guys, when we were still a kid or teenager our task was probably limited to playing, studying, doing our homework or helping parents a little cleaning. But when we grow to be adult, we live together with increased responsibility and the burden of thought we are supposed to endure, and when we have to live exactly like what others think is the thing that burdens us. The majority think that in the age of twenty-five we are supposed to be successful in the terms of carrier, financial and relationship (marriage). They mostly build a stereotype that the higher the educational level of someone the higher position and salary should be earned. Society in Indonesia also think it’s weird if a woman is still unmarried in the late of twenties because here commonly the marriage demand is a big deal and one of main priority somebody has to do especially when one has entered the age of twenties she/he will be questioned by parents, relatives, friends or neighbour on when will she/he get married especially in the moment when we are gathering like ‘iedl fitr’ there will be other personal questions which are so common and considered as friendliness (chit-chat) but not so friendly actually.

In today’s life, we live in a digital era where almost everything depends on technology advancement. smartphone, for instance, which there are so many apps that are available on it that can make our lives easier in certain things so that is why there are lots of people who cannot get rid of it. In particular, through smartphone that can globally connect us all with something called internet connection where we can access social media and connect easily with people even they are far from us. Once we involve onto social media we will find a range of information and many types of people who typically like to show off, of course showing off the good side only. We sometimes feel that life suck when we see people on social media or perhaps our peers show their achievement or success while we have not made a change to make our lives better then we try to compare ourselves to others why we are not as lucky as them, what a pity we are when we have to live based on social construction: pursuing degree-getting a good job with high salary-owning business-married-having children, coupled with other ambitions to have some more fun by travelling, hang out with friends in an expensive and instagramable resto/cafe, owning a home and fancy car and then make own family but sometimes life is not always fit with either social expectations or our ambitions. In the other side, we want to make our parents happy with helping them financially. We feel frustrated when we cannot be like them. Feeling left behind amid the life competition is tighter and tighter day by day.

I cannot deny how it feels when living under social pressure makes me afraid of failure. But I do not be a coward who gives up in facing life. To overcome this I learn to accept it and learn how to thank God. Life is a gift. I don’t want to waste my time just for thinking of success and failure in a quarter life. I just keep trying to achieve dreams and find out what is meaning to me. Success is not always identically in terms of material. But when I can do good things for others, religion is a success as well. Never comparing ourselves to others because it is not good for mental health, gratitude is the best thing we can do.

I am sorry to be so dramatic... 😀

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