Existential crisis: change your life in one second

Did you know that more than 30% of Millennials and Gen-Z people do not feel in control of their lives and are not satisfied with their mental health?

Funny enough, the same age groups are the main buyers of self-help content. And that industry has grown to be over $50 billion in 2024.

So, how can these two things coexist? Shouldn’t we all be happier, healthier, and in control of our lives with all that awesome information out there?

Not really. Because even the best self-help books can’t take you to a place where real change begins. And that place is your personal existential crisis. Only after you reach that, self-development content may start helping you.

So, in this post, I’ll prove that having an existential crisis is a good thing for you and show you how to get there faster, so you could kick-start your journey to the life you really want.

THE TRAP OF COMFORT

Here’s a quick question for you. Do you like being uncomfortable?

Do you enjoy feelings of fear, anxiety, or disappointment?

If you do, well, you must be special, because most people hate being uncomfortable.

In fact, we do everything we can to avoid that feeling. We numb ourselves to it via various types of escapism like booze, social media, overworking at our jobs, overconsuming self-help books, and generally through keeping our minds distracted.

An existential crisis is ultimately uncomfortable. It’s when you wake up one day and realize that your life has been a series of choices that you made half-asleep, turning your whole path into one big, boring compromise.

That’s when you question your purpose, your place in the world, your very existence. Hence the name.

It just sucks. So, no surprise that it takes decades for most people to arrive at the existential crisis, usually once no amount of numbing can argue with the tick-tock of their time running out.

So, let me tell you this. Don’t wait until you hear that clock. Start seeking your existential crisis today, right now. I’ll give you 4 main reasons why you should.

Reason 1 - The Plot Twist

We all have comfort movies, right? The ones that are familiar and pleasantly predictable. The ones we watch when we're in pajamas on weekends.

They can be a great comfort in moderation. However, keep watching them all the time, and soon enough, you'll be in a state of lethargic boredom.

The movies that stick with us, that we keep thinking about days after we've watched them, are the ones that take risks and have cool plot twists.

And that’s what an existential crisis can be for you. It can allow you to rewrite the script of your life and make it less cliché.

Reason 2 – The Edge of Life

Try to recall the most memorable moments of your life? Maybe when you went skydiving, or when you moved out of your parents' house and first arrived at college. Perhaps it was in that sweet, long moment as you were waiting on one knee for your loved one to say yes.

Of course, not all of them were happy. Some were scary, some terribly sad. Still, whatever those moments were, you remember them vividly.

That’s because they are the ones that cut through all that is mundane and normal, making you feel deeply. They took you to the sharp edge of life.

That is how an existential crisis feels.

It is raw, it’s powerful, and there are few things that can make you feel as alive as it does.

Reason 3 – There is No Spoon

Freedom is a popular word these days, mostly when it comes to financial freedom, but even that one, if you look deeper, can be brought back to the freedom of choice to live your life as you want. Financial freedom is just one of the tools for that.

Unless you’re chained somewhere in a basement or suffer from a terrible disability or illness, there's only one thing that stands between you and your freedom. And that is you. Or rather, your beliefs and the baggage of the life you’ve lived so far.

Now, the beauty of the existential crisis is that it has the power to erase all of that in one swoop.

Your presumptions don’t matter; opinions of others don't matter. You can drop your baggage if it weighs you down. Nothing is true. Nothing matters, which means that anything could matter. And you are free to find out what it is that really matters to you.

Reason 4 – The One-Step Program

I’m sure you’ve seen all those books, videos, and posts on 30-day programs to change your life. Or 90-day, it doesn’t matter. There are thousands of them out there. The problem is that most of this content is useless.

No matter how many books you read or how many podcasts you listen to, you can’t change your life unless you feel deeply in your very core that you have no choice but to change, that you cannot live one more moment going in the same direction that you have been going.

So, no, you can’t change your life in 30 days. But you can change in one second if you reach and embrace your existential crisis.

HOW TO GET THERE

OK, if all of that doesn’t scare you off, let’s talk about how you can actually help yourself reach that state of an existential crisis without waiting for it to arrive for another 20 years.

I’ll give you some straightforward techniques here that worked for me and for some other people I know. So, try these 7 things:

1. The Walkabout

Here’s a quote from the Red Hot Chili Peppers song of the same name:

"I think I'll go on a walkaboutAnd find out what it's all aboutAnd that ain't hardJust me and my own two feetIn the heat I've got myself to meet"

That is a beautiful summary of a very important first step towards your existential crisis. You first need to create an environment for it—one which is free from distractions and will allow you to confront your own thoughts.

The easiest way to do that is to go for a walk. Preferably somewhere quiet and in nature, but failing that, it can be in the middle of a busy city; just get yourself some noise-cancelling earphones with some instrumental music.

Delete or block all your social media, messenger, and email apps, and just walk for a long time. The idea, just like it says in the song, is to walk until you meet yourself.

You may, of course, need multiple walks like this to get to the right frame of mind, but it may also only take one. And that’s where the next steps come in.

2. The Questions of Everything

Now that you’re on a walkabout, for the first 10-20 minutes, just focus on the activity of walking and the world around you. The colors, the sounds, people, and objects, the fact that you are moving through the world. This will ground you a little, which will help to deal with the fun part.

And that is the questions.

You have to question everything, starting with the obvious things in your life – your job, your closest relationships, your core beliefs.

Why do you do what you do? What is the point?

Ask these relentlessly. It’s going to feel very uncomfortable; you will feel your brain pushing back against it. You’ll feel the urge to check your Facebook feed or YouTube, just to get that feeling of stability back. That’s when you know that you’re on the right track.

Go even harder on those questions now.

Remind yourself that you will die. And ask yourself, what if you die tomorrow? How do your everyday worries and fears look now?

How does your life, the way it is right now, look on the edge of the abyss with no time left? Is it a bright flame or a weak flicker?

Once you feel unbalanced enough, you go deeper.

Look at the sky. What are you in the face of the universe? What are your everyday worries and fears? Does your very existence have meaning?

3. The Awakening

Do you remember the time when you had a very bad flu, or COVID, or whatever, when you are just sick in bed for days? Recall that first day after recovery, the first feeling of going out in the world for the first time, breathing in the fresh air and feeling… awake, reborn in a way.

If you ask yourself enough questions and you embrace the uncertainty and dread that they bring, at some point, your existential crisis will hit you. Embrace it, and it will leave you exhausted but feeling more awake than you’ve ever felt before.

You won’t have all the answers to all the questions, but what you will have are the answers to the most important ones. What direction do you want your life to take? What matters the most to you? And can you live another day, another second without going for it?

From that point onwards is when the good self-development and education content may start actually making a difference for you, because you already have the answer to your life, you just need action steps to get there.

So, here’s wishing that you reach that existential crisis of yours and make it to the other side renewed.