Life is stressful. Like, I want to throw away all my tech, pack up my dog, and drive to a cabin in the woods kind of stressful. In the good old days, people would wait until around mid-life to have a crisis and make some (questionable?) interesting decisions. Father of four? Sure, trade in that mini-van and get a coupe because who needs to take kids places?! Walking is good exercise. CFO in line for an opening at a tech giant? No, I definitely understand that you want to be a mime and leave finance behind. I’m curious why one would voluntarily choose to enter the world of money anyways, but that’s a topic for another time. Money is so…complicated. There’s so many rules and regulations and expectations. It hurts my head – that’s why I just spend all of mine. Nothing left to deal with.

It’s at a point where I get concerned when someone doesn’t go through a midlife crisis. Do you feel nothing? Is stress just not a word in your vocabulary? Do you simply deal with things in a healthy, open manner instead of suppressing those feelings until the emotional bank is full and everything boils over at once? Teach me your ways stone-faced killer. Seems very un-American of you, though. Talking about things. Controlling what you can control and not worrying about the rest.

Doesn’t that sound nice? It kind of sounds like the future. A very distant future. As a millennial, I have not yet reached the age to have a midlife breakdown. It’s literally impossible. Even if I was born in the first year of our wave-making, life-ruining generation, I would be about 2 years shy. I have however, experienced my tenth-life and quarter-life crises. Both were eye-opening. Both led to drastic changes. Makes me nervous for my upcoming third-life crisis. Because surely that is what’s coming my way, right? There’s too much pressure not to have one. I love talking to my grandparents about life because their answer is always the same loving, caring, empathetic one you would hope to receive: You kids have it so easy today. You would never have survived back in my day because you’re all too d*mn lazy now. 

What?! I don’t think you understand that I have to constantly take perfect pictures of myself so I can make my life look a billion times more exciting than it is for all the randos that follow me on the Gram. Also, I have to “engage” with my followers online so that more people will want to follow me and I can maintain a high enough count to be deemed socially acceptable. On top of all that stress, I have to do this thing called work and they want me there from 9AM ALL THE WAY UNTIL 6PM! What even is life? There’s not even a good avocado toast shop near my apartment complex that has destroyed America’s housing market.

Just writing that I had a baby crisis. It’s a lot of pressure to single-handedly ruin everything the Baby Boomers and beyond worked so hard to create. If you’re blissfully unaware, take a quick hiatus from reading this and Google something along the lines of ‘things millennials have killed / ruined’. You won’t be disappointed. My favorite is napkins – how dare we care enough about the environment to demand non-paper napkins. Rude. Sorry, not sorry, that we want to live life somewhere without the word office in it. Is this actually a problem for the napkin industry? Are there companies out there who only make paper napkins and nothing else? Are we putting someone out of business here? I think not.

Lost my train of thought for a second, like a true unfocused, dare I say restless, young professional. My point is, that it’s the new normal to feel confused, lost, turned around, stuck, etc. wherever you are. Don’t take it personally, that goes back through ALL the generations and it’s something that we millennials have most certainly NOT killed off. In all seriousness though, it’s ok, no, it’s more than ok to express what you’re going through or voice your feelings before the volcano of tears and burning words appear. Take it from me, a well versed person in riding the storm of emotions that come when you let the air stir just a bit too long…that doesn’t even make sense. So let’s go with it – new age style!

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who has been through any stage of life crisis, pass this along so they can feel less alone in what they’re going through. If you don’t believe in crises, only exhilarating changes, well I admire your perspective. Thanks for reading!

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