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'I have no clue what I’m doing. Kidding. Kind of…'
At 25 you realise you are no longer invincible. Picture iStock
One minute you’re young and wild, the next you’re watching friends buy houses, get married, and pop out babies at a rate of knots. All this while you’re still figuring out which medical aid plan won’t financially ruin you.
It’s the quarter-life crisis, a mid-20s realisation that adulthood is an extreme sport and you’re the party trick.
For soon-to-be 26-year-old Miss Demeanour from Pretoria—and yes, the names have been changed—the crisis is a daily existential question.
“Every single day,” she said. But I prefer it that way. It’s a daily reminder that there is a point to living and going through your day.”
Bradley A is two years past the point but not quite over the hump.
He’s an architecture graduate and felt the crisis in his career choices.
“When you don’t have stability, you take what’s in front of you,” he said. “That’s how I’ve worked in so many different roles. He’s been a sales rep, carpenter, florist and an English teacher in South Korea.
Each decision was made with the hope that it would lead me somewhere, but I’ve also learned that detours don’t always mean dead ends.”
Michelle from Johannesburg took a more measured approach. “I think a bit of surviving and a bit of living,” she said.
“I’ve started pouring into myself and living my life based off of the faith I follow, not just saying I follow it.”
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Dr Jonathan Redelinghuys, a psychologist and medical doctor, said that while the quarter-life crisis isn’t a clinically defined condition, it’s a very real phenomenon.
“It’s a period of intense self-doubt and anxiety about the future, often triggered by societal pressures and personal expectations,” he said.
“Young adults today face economic instability, rising living costs, and an overwhelming pressure to ‘have it all together’. It can be paralysing.”
Sometimes the crisis is about finding direction, Miss Demeanour shared.
“I have no clue what I’m doing. Kidding. Kind of…” but she added that she was trying to build a more meaningful career and social circle.
Bradley echoed that uncertainty.
“I’m actively looking for a job in architecture, but I’m also trying to make the most of my time by expanding my skill set. Jobs require experience, but you can’t get experience without a job. It’s a cycle that feels impossible to escape.”
Miss Demeanour added that “sometimes I wish I was a stripper, but then I cramp up when touching my toes”.
“Other days I want to be a botanist and study plants for a living, but then I’m reminded that you’ll work in the same sterile environment with very little colour except green and decay. Then I’m happy with my career again.”
The fear of stagnation starts to surface, said Bradley.
“I just don’t want to feel like I’m going nowhere,” he said. “I’m approaching thirty, and when I think about life expectancy in South Africa which around 61 years, it freaks me out.
“I’m almost halfway there, and it feels like I’m still stuck at the starting line.”
Yet, he added that not seeing progress doesn’t mean there isn’t any.
“Sometimes, even the messiest detours lead somewhere worthwhile.”
For some, that quarter life manifests in questioning everything or simply riding solo. Like a hit parade inside an existential crisis of expectations.
Michelle, however, wasn’t too concerned with external pressures.
“I am in my own race with my own finish line,” she said. “But I do not think I am where I want to be in life for me to be having children, and marriage does not stress me out too much. I want someone who most importantly has the same godly values as me because that is the most important thing in my life.”
Dr Redelinghuys said that at around age 25 reality sets in, in a big way.
“This is the first time many people realise they’re not invincible,” he said. “They’re no longer cushioned by university life or their parents’ support, and they suddenly must navigate everything on their own.
“It’s terrifying, but it’s also a necessary phase of growth.”
Yet he thinks that there is opportunity too.
“It does not have to be a setback,” he said. “It’s an intense period of self-reflection that forces people to define their values, goals, and personal identity.”
Actress and writer Micaela Tucker turned her own quarter-life crisis into a stage production, using the chaos of 25 as material for a one-woman show called A Doll’s House.
“I think 25 is the first time you really start taking ownership and responsibility of your life,” she said.
For Miss Demeanour Virginia Woolf summed it all up nicely: “I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.”
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