You’ll be lucky if your existential crisis strikes well into your adult life, which is not to say that a midlife crisis is any easier to handle than something like a quarter-life crisis – probably the early onset of an existential crisis while you’re still growing. However, you’d much rather have to deal with something like an existential crisis later on your life when you’ve pretty much got the whole life thing sorted out.
What I’m trying to say is that at the age of 50 for example anything you do in reaction to an existential crisis or something similar to that won’t compel you to make any drastic decisions which have the potential to change your life in a big way. If you’re having an existential crisis at the age of 17 for example, that’s around the age at which you’re still trying to find your feet as someone who is about to transition into early adulthood and that’s the age at which some of the decisions you make could have a very big impact on how your life is going to play out as a whole, in the coming future.
Now I hope by merely reading this none of you are going to have your existential crisis brought about during the more delicate phases of your lives, but then again it’s something you either go through or you don’t. Most people whom you might tell about your suffering of an existential crisis simply don’t get it, as much as they may be able to empathise with your.
So how do you go about managing your existential crisis then? The key to it is indeed contained in the emphasis on managing it and not trying to completely get rid of it or avert it. This approach will otherwise only make it worse as you cannot help but question just why it is you have to do certain things which seem not to have any meaning to them whatsoever.
Don’t focus too much on the bigger picture as this is the main reason why most people suffer from existential crises. You try to see the end-goal of it all and if you can’t you tend to dismiss the very need to engage in anything which you suggestively have to do.
So I guess all in all what it comes down to in an attempt to manage your existential crisis is this – find your own meaning in the things which the people who are important to you find meaning in. So you might not particularly believe in all the festivities around Christmas time for example, but your loved ones probably do and you can derive some meaning and satisfaction out of the fond looks on their faces when you hand them their Christmas baskets or other types of presents.
It’s just one of those instances in which you don’t need to be your usual, over-thinker self…
Go with the flow and try to enjoy the moments. You might just find the meaning you’re looking for in an inexplicable manner or from a most unexpected source.
