My Existential Crisis

Semester one is over. *Breathes sigh of relief*. Four weeks of Christmas break - heaven. Honestly, I don't know how it's been three months already. Three months of studying a degree I'm not enjoying, three months of being on the fence on whether or not I should keep studying. I've found myself having "okay" days where I think to myself that maybe it's not so bad and that I should just stick it out because I have to. Then there are the days where I feel like I'm losing my mind. The days where I think to myself "what am I doing with my life?"

For all it's hype, 21 is seriously overrated. It comes with a whole load of terms and conditions that I didn't agree to. It's attached with responsibilities that I didn't sign up for. And it's accompanied by the heavy pressure of having life figured out. It's a far cry from being 17 and not knowing what you want to do with your life. No, at 21, you should have your shit together. You should have your degree, have your next move figured out, and have your five-year plan falling into place. Me? I'm floating in the clouds with no clue where I'm headed, no inkling as to which move is right for me, and no direction in life. Five-year plan? I don't even have a one-month plan. I am quite literally taking each day as it comes.

Not for the first time, I wish I had a little crystal ball telling me my future. Because not knowing what I should do with my life is killing me. I've never been one to advocate taking a gap year but right now, not taking one is the one thing I regret. Looking back, taking a year out after I graduated would have done me a world of good. Just to figure out what I want from life. And what's worse is the overwhelming feeling of lagging behind. It seems like fellow graduates have their life in order; they already have jobs, are already making it in the world, and I still can't work out which career I want to build. Why is that? Why is it that we assume that by our twenties life should be coming together? It's like we feel that after we've graduated, we have one year to glue all our educational pieces together and build something amazing, and if not, then our window of time has closed. And with each month, we're being chased towards an invisible deadline and if we don't submit the proposition of our future by then, then we don't have a future, period. Suddenly we're being sucked in by this black hole of confusion and we're being swallowed whole by "adulthood" and the "real world", wandering aimlessly while we try to find our footing, and we're desperately clutching at straws to make something of our life so we don't feel like a complete failure.

I need to shatter the illusion that is the twenties. Because if I don't, I will lose my sanity. I'm driven by this idea that I need to move faster, that I'm running out of time, and nothing makes sense anymore because for the first time in my life, I don't have a next move. I don't know where my future is headed. And honestly? It makes me wonder why we're living. Putting aside all religious connotations, why the hell are we living this life? It has no meaning, no purpose. We study and study and study only to find that a career is bloody hard to come by and it's more than likely we'll be lumbered with a job we're not 100% content with, and then we work and work and work for the next forty years of our life, just blindly going through the motions to support ourselves, trying in vain to find a peace of mind with our distractions before living out the next day exactly the same as the day before. The same, repetitive cycle. And all I can think is "is this life worth it?" Is it? Really? Because right now, this life isn't worth living at all.

Escapism. I live and breathe escapism. I am tired of this life. Exhausted at trying to figure it out. You hit 21 and you realise that it's not at all what you had imagined when you were ten with your head brimming with dreams and hopes and this image of how the world should be in all its vibrant colour but no, it's not turning out anything like you had planned or wanted, and it's tedious and dull and gray and miserable and suddenly, you want out. Everyone tells me that "it'll work out", and that "it'll fall into place" - and I want to shake them, hard, and scream "WHEN?" When exactly is my life going to fall into place? Because right now? Right now, it's