27 and Battling My Existential Anxiety as I Head to my 30s

[agility]

Greetings,

My name is Sunny, and I am lurking from New Zealand. I was exposed to MJ DeMarco and Unscripted in 2019, and the book is incredibly life-affirming.

I had the conventional milestones back in 2017 - 2019: A career job, moved out of my parents, was in a long-term relationship, and went on extensive vacations overseas. Despite experiencing this, I went through a quarter life crisis. I was emotionally exhausted. Burnt out. It didn't satisfy me. The burn out was so bad I just lost it all and mentally checked out. There was a day where my body just woke up with paralysis that I couldn't move with sheer willpower.

I think I was numbing myself, and coping with the dissappointment in myself, of not achieving financial autonomy on my own terms and means. Following the script was just rejecting myself and potential.

I've always been a rebellious spirit when I was kid, but I buried it with comfort pleasures and faux safety nets. I realised I will continue being miserable conforming to the rat race consumer-employee mindset, and rejecting the parts of me that seek freedom and autonomy.

So the conventional script checklist has failed to satisfy me, even if being grateful didn't sway away that nagging dissatisfaction.

Now that I'm heading to my 30s, I am starting my work towards milestones and lifestyle that is more meaningful to me, and not follow the script hellhole born out of exploitation and fear and false promises of security.

I would rather cry trying to get autonomy on my own means, than cry in regret. I'm figuring out how to be the digital creative that I'm destined to be. I look forward to learning everyones journey and life lessons here.

 

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[ygtrhos]

Hello dude firstly, congratulations on opening yourself up about these things.

I am 33, from Turkey and I have reached where I wanted to be with 16-17 already: a corporate job in a lushy first world country and a cute blonde girlfriend. I am what they call small bourgeosie.

I am not very experienced about overcoming existential problems but from what I observe from people with huge fulfilment in life even is that existential anxiety (i.e. what am I doing really with my life, is it worth it) is only something you can silence more, not completely quiet it.

It is more like a reflex, a very fundamental type of pain that you can only alleviate very much but not completely get rid of it. (it would be probably evolutionarily conradictory)

I would love to be proven wrong about this.

So, I would rather see the whole pain as a signal to correct something, rather than battling with it. That would lead to acceptance.

Acceptance is not resignation or surrender. You can always steer in the right direction.