Latter-day Saint Life

3 Ways to Survive Your Mormon Quarter-Life Crisis

40543.jpg

After graduating college, I realized I hadn't hit nearly as many checkboxes as I wanted on the five-year plan I made when I was a Mia Maid. 

I wasn't employed at my dream job, let alone employed—unless you count how many hours a day I spent filling out applications, then I guess I had a job finding a job. I was still renting an apartment where my upstairs neighbors controlled the heat and my landlords didn't allow space heaters. The air conditioning in my car was about as effective as a geriatric man breathing on my face. And I spent most of my time alone, staring at my bank account and wondering how I was going to make ends meet. 

I looked around and felt everyone my age already had a successful career, a shiny new car, a cute new house, a husband, two incredibly photogenic kids, and a Golden Retriever puppy.

During this time of, I'll be honest, intense self-pity, I just kept thinking this can't be it. This can't be all Heavenly Father wants me to be or do, especially when I was trying my hardest to get out of this cycle of misery. 

My faith wavered, my depression spiked, and I felt like an utter failure. 

I was experiencing a quarter-life crisis. 

Now before you shake your head and think a quarter-life crisis is just another Millennial construct, just stick with me for a minute, there's actual science to prove quarter-life crises are happening now more than ever.

According to prri.org, young adults 18 to 29 are four times as likely as previous generations to identify as religiously unaffiliated, many of which formerly identified religion before entering their 20s.

A 2015 study by theNational Institute of Mental Health found that 10.3 percent of adults 18 to 29 experienced a major depressive episode as compared to 7.5 percent for adults 26 to 49 and 4.8 percent for those 50 and older. 

And according to a survey taken by gumtree.com, 86 percent of the 1,100 participants said they felt pressured to succeed in their careers, relationships, and finances before hitting 30. 

It appears people in their early 20s to early 30s are experiencing depression, loss of faith, and stress comparable to a midlife crisis. 

So how do you survive a quarter-life crisis and come out on top? Here are three things I found that really helped me get through. 

1. Serve Others

The best thing I did for myself during my quarter-life crisis was what I did for those around me. 

Granted, I never did any big, grand gesture of service. I never went to a foreign country to dig wells or donated a kidney. But the small things I did do, like feed the missionaries, teach sunbeams, write to my missionary sister, tend my nephew—those things helped more than I can say.

These small acts of service got me out of my self-pity funk and made me realize there was more to the world than my problems and, in the grand scheme of things, my problems weren't really as serious or as permanent as I thought. I felt real joy and purpose in my life again. 

In fact, we are taught that giving service to others is one of the best things we can do to feel true satisfaction in our lives. 

As Elder L. Tom Perry wrote in a 1983 New Era article, "It is an eternal truth that the greatest satisfaction we find in this life is not that which is done for self but that which is given for the benefit of another."

And as President Monson said in his October 2009 general conference talk:

"To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy."

Even when times are good, service can bring a sense of satisfaction and joy to our lives that remind us of our true purposes on this earth. 

2. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

One of the biggest problems I had while I was going through my quarter-life crisis was thinking everyone else my age was doing so much better than I was. I would see them embarking on their budding careers or starting a family and think, compared to them, I was a total failure. 

Then one day, I was having lunch with a good friend of mine I thought had it all together. I was expecting to hear how much she loved her job, how exciting her life had been since graduating, and what her plans were for the future. But that wasn't what she told me. 

She said she hated her job, was frustrated with her dating experiences so far, and didn't know where her life was going to go from here. 

Throughout this conversation, I was surprised to hear she shared many of my same fears and anxieties. I saw the same trend when I really talked with other friends my age who I thought had it all. They all had fears and insecurities; none of them were the Instagram-perfect people I had imagined they were. 

Starting out is supposed to be difficult, for about 90 percent of us at least. Comparing our efforts to others is rarely, if ever, productive and inaccurate because we don't know the inner struggles, the things we don't see on Instagram or Facebook.

And seeking praise for how well we are doing won't do any good either. 

As President Boyd K. Packer said in his April 2007 talk general conference talk, "The Spirit of the Tabernacle":

"To seek after the praise of men, the scriptures caution us, is to be led carefully away from the only safe path to follow in life. . . . And the scriptures warn us plainly what follows when we 'aspire to the honors of men.'"

It doesn't do us any good to compare our efforts, at any point in our lives, with the success we see in others. No one is perfect. Everyone has their trials; everyone has their struggles. Comparing ourselves will not make anything better, and our time and energy could be spent somewhere else anyway. 

3. Develop New Talents and Spiritual Gifts

I had a lot of time on my hands during the months I was searching for a job, and I started noticing there were skills mentioned in all the applications I filled out that I could develop more. 

I went to the library a lot and signed up for free online courses to learn more about the skills I wanted to develop. 

Not only did this make me feel like I was in control, it also helped me spiritually. I began to wonder what spiritual gifts I had that I could improve or new ones I could develop. 

And as I started researching spiritual gifts, I realized there were more than I thought there were. 

In his October 2017 general conference address, Elder John C. Pingree Jr.of the Seventy said:

"A number of spiritual gifts are documented in scripture (see 1 Corinthians 12:1–11, 31; Moroni 10:8–18; D&C 46:8–26), but there are many others. Some might include having compassion, expressing hope, relating well with people, organizing effectively, speaking or writing persuasively, teaching clearly, and working hard."

As I spent my time working on new talents and developing spiritual gifts, I felt like I was doing more of what my Heavenly Father wanted me to do. I felt like I was able to see a little bit of what I could become and what He wanted me to do at that time. 

Everyone has moments in their life where they feel like they are in crisis. Whether it's a quarter-life, midlife, or third-quarter life crisis, we sometimes have periods in our lives where we wonder if this is it. 

It's not. There is so much more to life than our perceived short-comings and disappointments. Service, not comparing myself to others, and developing new talents and gifts were just a few things that helped me realize this. And each of them was based on something I learned before while studying the gospel. 

That's the beauty of the gospel; we can find hope and peace by living its teachings, no matter what we are experiencing in our lives, and become a better person than we were before. 

Lead image from Getty Images
Tags
Share
Stay in the loop!
Enter your email to receive updates on our LDS Living content