My Quarter Life Crisis — And Why I Don’t Regret It
First, let me say that I am thirty years old and am aware that is more than a quarter-of-a life unless I live to 120, as a robo-human. Anyway, while I was sitting at my grandpa’s house over the holidays like I do every year, I could not ignore the fact that at this age I had no job, no kids, no spouse, no house of my own, and seemingly an endless list of possibilities in front of me. That alone may sound like the crisis but it was actually the end result, because back in July of last year when I was working a boring-as-hell job, my anxiety and stress reached a peak, and I decided I desperately needed a change.
Although my degree is in Communications, after graduation I ended up taking a job doing accounts payable for my university while I was searching for other work. Needless to say, routing invoices for eight hours a day was bound to break me, but everything else I was applying to wasn’t panning out either so eventually, a year-and-a-half passed. But my anxiety wasn’t focused on that. I also broke off a four-year relationship the year before and was definitely not over it. Every room in my apartment consisted of a different memory of her, not to mention all the areas in the little city where we went to college. But wait — there’s more. I was committed to being a rock musician since I was eighteen and my band had our album release show coming up soon. However, I also decided that I was burned out from years of booking shows and recording music, so this release show would also be our last show… We finally released our album to the world (Once United on Spotify), but I felt so over every aspect of my life and with nowhere to go, I started to feel like a train derailing.
So in the middle of the summer, I took an impromptu visit to Mackinac Island: a small island in Northern Michigan that banned motorized vehicles in 1898. I’ve been there many times with my family in the past and always loved it. The horse-drawn carriages, happy visitors, locally famous fudge, all on an island that is designed to look like the 1800s; it didn’t even seem like a real place. But on this particular visit, I felt a wave of peace wash over me. I did not want to go back to work. I started telling my friends up north I was going to quit my job and work on Mackinac Island for the rest of the summer, doing anything. I would’ve cleaned toilets just to be there. My friends understandably didn’t take that too seriously. Even I didn’t fully understand why I wanted to be there so badly. But a few days later I put in my two weeks notice, called some businesses and landed a job at the golf course on the island. I was able to move out of my apartment in three weeks, sold most of my furniture, and by August 1st, I was living in an employee housing unit on the island.
I wasn’t sure how this experience would go but, for some reason, all of my instincts were telling me I need to be there. So my first day of work I rode my bike to the golf course and realized that without fenders, horse shit is prone to flying everywhere, especially along the back of my shirt. I immediately had to wash both my shirt and shorts in the bathroom sink. Aside from the minor embarrassment, I didn’t really care because I was still shocked that I lived on this island. Gradually, I started to sink into my environment and soak it in as much as I could, riding my bike around and exploring random trails and points on the map, ultimately contemplating, “what am I doing with my life? What do I want? What would make me happiest?”
While my mind wandered through these feelings, life on the island continued. I explored an outlook on the map and met a couple of guys there who were drinking in their hammocks and looking out over the expansive waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. They were friendly and seemingly drunk. We talked about hang gliding and how I would never have the guts to do it while one of them was curling his toes over the ledge. After saying our goodbyes, I headed back toward my bike and then suddenly heard a crash through the trees and felt a thud. When I looked back, there was only one guy standing there. It quickly became obvious that the toe curler fell off the cliff, about a forty-foot fall onto rocks. His friend and I both called 911 and luckily I had a map with me to direct the ambulance to our exact location. I spent the next few hours watching the fire department volunteers rig up some lines to trees in order to pull him up. They told me he broke his wrist and ankle but should be OK. The whole situation made me wonder if I was meant to be there to help, or if I was part of the reason he fell.
Those guys weren’t the only interesting characters I met. One was a “Yooper” (someone from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan) named Davey. He drove horses on the island for guests and I would often interact with him at the golf course. Davey was in many ways an odd appearing man: very short, maybe five feet, missing most or all of his teeth, a large pot belly, and a generally disheveled appearance. Plenty of people would talk about him behind his back, but he left an impression on me. He liked to talk. Between his socially awkward conversations about his cancer treatments and diabetes, as well as what he thought of the horses or the weather, I often felt bad for him or found him intriguing. I learned that he spent many summers on Mackinac Island driving horses and in the winter he works on a Native American reservation cleaning public facilities. Davey was a reminder that there are people living very different lives than I could even imagine. I think it also deserves mentioning that he was a kind-hearted man, and I respected that.
Generally, days and nights were very relaxing and peaceful, between riding my bike, reading, swimming, watching the waves, the sunset, and the Mackinac Bridge, I really didn’t have a care in the world other than work. Meals were covered in my employee meal plan. My place was just temporary. I didn’t even have friends on the island to hang out with. In some ways, I preferred that too. The experience started to feel like I just hit pause on life, something I desperately needed. It was an immersion into solitude but, more importantly, peace. It was near the end of my time there that I realized the anxiety that usually plagued me throughout life was temporarily gone. I stopped pressuring myself to be productive constantly. In fact, I did the opposite. I did whatever I felt like doing in each present moment, none of which was productive. I stopped thinking about careers or my band or even a significant other, I just let myself feel peace. It was, in a way, a transformative experience.
Since leaving the island, I have done my best to carry that peaceful feeling with me into the “real world”. Whenever I feel anxious, stressed, or pressured to be more productive, I balance it out with the feeling I had on the island and remind myself that the real world doesn’t have to be stressful. No one is pushing me other than myself. I can be peaceful whenever I want. I can be like Davey if I want. I could go to another island and string up a hammock somewhere too if I want. The island helped me see that and feel that, but ultimately I don’t need to be there to have better control of my emotions and anxiety.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t want to live on the island and I don’t want to go back this summer either. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I needed at that moment. I can’t imagine if I would have stayed at my old job, staring out the window between routing invoices, wondering what life is like for everyone else. Almost everyone thought that going to Mackinac Island was a weird choice and “why would someone want to walk away from those health benefits?” I understood their perspective, but I don’t think they fully understood mine — that having health benefits in return for a life you don’t enjoy is hardly worth it. So don’t be afraid to do what feels right at the moment, even if the future is uncertain.
If I really wanted to generate a takeaway life lesson from this experience, it would be summarized in this incredible Youtube video quoting British-American philosopher Alan Watts:
“We thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at that end, and the thing was to get to that thing at that end. Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.”
The only finish line in life is death — so don’t let anxiety and stress push you any closer to that line. Take your time, enjoy yourself now, and maybe try out a quarter-life-crisis if it feels right.
