In your 20s everything seems daunting and you feel left behind, the in-between of your teenage and adult years.
The truth is, your 20s feel like a sequel to your anxious and uncertain teenage years, only you are now expected to have the rest of your life completely mapped out, with a ring on your finger and a baby on the way.
When I turned 18, the concept of individuality was unfamiliar to me. I knew that I loved Lana Del Rey and that my favourite colour was pink. I knew that Zayn Malik was always my favourite member of One Direction (so much so that I took a week off school when he left the band). At the time, those quirks felt enough to make me, me.
I had grown up in a small town where, as cliché as it sounds, everyone knew everyone, so I never felt pressure to uncover who I was. Why bother? The people I surrounded myself with had watched me grow up and already understood what I liked and didn’t like. Wasn’t that enough?
It destroyed my self-esteem, as I compared my worth to the curated versions of people I would see daily.
It only took an hour at university for my self-assurance to dissipate. Taking a seat amongst a sea of people I didn’t know, I became suddenly conscious of myself; the colour of my jumper felt embarrassingly wrong, the brand of my bag too forgettable. None of it had mattered a moment ago, but now these insignificant details were shaping other people’s first impressions of me. And whilst I like the colour red and own a fair number of bags from Urban Outfitters, there was nothing about my outfit that was even remotely unique. Nothing that gave an insight into who I was.
But did I even know who I was?
This revelation marked the beginning of my own quarterlife crisis, and it hit me harder than puberty (only this time, I didn’t have the advantage of growing boobs). I hated myself for lacking originality and craved self-identity, yet I was too scared to embrace who I truly was out of fear that I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t impressive enough. Instead, I allowed myself to get caught up in this weird cycle where I would suppress my insecurities by crafting an inauthentic persona for myself that, I believed, would allow me to thrive. Only the more I hid my genuine self, the more deeply insecure I felt.
This inner struggle completely distorted my reality. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by people of the same age who appeared to have their whole lives planned out; they knew what career they wanted and were actively taking steps towards pursuing it, whilst projecting a confidence that seemed effortless. I saw how they seamlessly carried themselves from one achievement to another, and I felt as though I was being left behind in a race that I didn’t even realise had begun. Their futures were actively taking shape, whilst I was stuck at the foundational building blocks of self-identity. I felt left behind, isolated.
I became obsessed with refining a unique identity which would be impressive enough to accelerate my success.
It destroyed my self-esteem, as I compared my worth to the curated versions of people I would see daily. Every night ended the same; I would mindlessly scroll through Pinterest for hours on end, pinning photos of slim girls in cleverly put together outfits onto a board called “The New Me”. I convinced myself that if I saved enough photos, ordered enough outfits, and changed my appearance enough, then I could exude the same confidence as my peers. Maybe the answer to my feelings of self-estrangement was simply a new pair of jeans.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Before I knew it, I had completed my first year of university and, although my wardrobe was looking far superior to what it had been 9 months ago, I was no closer to becoming the person I so desperately wanted to be.
In hindsight, there was no amount of clothes or makeup that could change how I felt on the inside. What I had yet to learn was that the confidence and self-assurance I saw in those around me was rarely reflected in how they felt on the inside, and perhaps the quarterlife crisis that I had thought was uniquely mine was more common than I had realised.
I only wish someone had told me what I now know, which is that the year I spent feeling insecure was ultimately the year I would begin to understand myself. My uncertainty wasn’t a sign of failure, but rather an essential part of my growth. For so long, I had felt pressure to fulfil society’s rigid time constraints, which dictated when I must establish myself as a person and begin reaching all of life’s milestones. In reality, the process of finding yourself is rarely linear; it is messy, full of setbacks, and often filled with failure. However, it is this unpredictability that makes each person’s journey unique, and through that journey is how we gradually come to understand who we are.
For me, this meant sitting with my insecurity rather than trying to run away from it. When my quarterlife crisis began, I was stuck on the idea that I would succeed like my peers once I moulded a perfect persona for myself. I became obsessed with refining a unique identity which would be impressive enough to accelerate my success. Rather than allowing my real personality to shine through, I became increasingly preoccupied with all my flaws and what I could change about myself.
In contrast, true authenticity did not come from creating a fake persona; it was only when I allowed the obstacles and imperfections in my life to shape me that I finally felt authentically me.
Therefore, my advice is simple: stop comparing yourself. Once you can overcome your concern for what other people are doing, you create space to focus on your own goals. You are not behind. There is no “behind”. You are simply on your own journey.
