Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
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Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
1–10 of 96 posts
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#2There's not much here. He decided to compete against himself and made a list of self-improvement items? He complained about being directionless yet had some clear choices he could make. Cat? Grad School? Girlfriend?
Sounds like this person needs a role-model and a mentor.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#3As a fellow 23 year old Indian American who grew up in the tri-state area this hit way too close to home. I like to think I learned a lot of the lessons you’ve eschewed during my time in grad school right now but I caught myself sleuthing on your github and LinkedIn and feeling that familiar sense of envy. Some habits are hard to break I guess.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#4There's not much here. He decided to compete against himself and made a list of self-improvement items? He complained about being directionless yet had some clear choices he could make. Cat? Grad School? Girlfriend? Sounds like this person needs a role-model and a mentor.
And that's ok. Like, he's in his early twenties.
I upvoted this because the atmosphere of constant competition he describes is a relatively new thing (certainly I didn't experience it) and I'm interested to hear if other people of a similar age agree or have thoughts on this.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#5Competitiveness of any kind, with others or with oneself, whether physical or mental, seems to me like a crutch rather than a path to happiness.
If you can only feel good about yourself when you're on the up and up, what happens when you start getting old and can no longer keep up with the young blood?
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#6This story is definitely something a lot of young ambitious people face, glad the author found some new areas to grow!
As someone about 10 years older with time to reflect, one thing that stood out is burnout. When you’re younger you can keep going nonstop, but even while young it can hit you every few months like it hit me.
My first thought for Saturdays with nothing to do is to build a casual social network that will compound over time and pay off in spades. Once people hit their 30s and 40s and their network is now in management positions, it can have huge benefits for your career or entrepreneurial endeavors.
So one idea is on your open Saturdays, yes spend half the day working out or swimming, but then take it easy the 2nd half, go spend 6 hours at the local beer garden with friends (or make friends), and build from there.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#7Sounds like you ran out of hobbies. Find a new hobby.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#8As a fellow 23 year old Indian American who grew up in the tri-state area this hit way too close to home. I like to think I learned a lot of the lessons you’ve eschewed during my time in grad school right now but I caught myself sleuthing on your github and LinkedIn and feeling that familiar sense of envy. Some habits are hard to break I guess.
> but I caught myself sleuthing on your github and LinkedIn and feeling that familiar sense of envy
He works at AWS? Is that considered particularly impressive to be envious over? Sure he went to Hopkins but that's not atypical in the Princeton area.
I'd imagine for most of his peers from high school he's considered a disappointment for working at "only" AWS, they're probably all ML Engineers at FB or Google or Two Sigma, etc.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#9Competitiveness of any kind, with others or with oneself, whether physical or mental, seems to me like a crutch rather than a path to happiness. If you can only feel good about yourself when you're on the up and up, what happens when you start getting old and can no longer keep up with the young blood?
You can still compare yourself to others in your age group. There needs to be a realization that there are always people better and worse.
Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises
#10I had my first quarter life crisis at 18, when I came to grips with the fact that I had accomplished nothing in my life so far, as evidenced by my lack of good college admissions - I graduated only 2nd in my class with just a 1500 SAT, which isn't good enough for top schools.
Unlike OP, however, it was less of an aimless drift and more of an aggressive, angry depression. Had another one at 20, when I realized that not getting into a FB internship would probably set me back permanently from my goals.
Now I'm 24, work at Amazon and widely considered a disappointment to people in OP's social circles. The pain has waned a bit, but the crisis is just constant now, like the roar of an engine on a long airplane flight in coach. Eventually the discomfort of the resting your head on the window and the anger you feel at the people with lie-flat seats paid for by Google and Facebook overpowers the rest.