In 2023, I spent a week ensconced in the tranquil jungles of Ubud for a yoga retreat. I was 23 then, fresh out of my first big girl job, and in the midst of my “funemployed” phase. Despite a dwindling bank account and feeling the early pressures of being in the rat race, I still felt like I was in the driver’s seat of my life. What I didn’t expect was to wind up in Ubud again two years later—even more lost, and this time with a broken heart.
Before embarking on a month-long pilgrimage to find myself, my life was the most grounded it ever was, at least on paper. I worked at a fashion publication (my dream job since I was 15), had a partner to go home to, and a house on the way. But life has a way of surprising you when you least expect it. In May, I left my stable job and exited a four-year relationship. I was abruptly pulled into life’s unforgiving riptides—everything I thought was going right in my life went wrong. What followed was a gut-wrenching cycle of denial, grief, anxiety and depression.
I had officially entered my quarter-life crisis, a rite of passage I thought I was exempt from. Somewhere along the way, I naively equated familiarity and security with happiness. Certainty became a distant memory, and change became an entity I feared crossing paths with. It didn’t help that I had also fallen prey to the sunk-cost fallacy. I was deeply afraid of abandoning my current trajectory because of everything I had invested up until that point: My years-long relationship that I fought hard to keep afloat, my Build-To-Order flat, and the job I had ardently pursued for years.
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For months, I had been suppressing my gut feelings and the intrusive thoughts that crept into my consciousness during the commute to work and before I went to bed. And contrary to what many may think, there was no major catalyst—no big fight with my partner, nothing went horribly wrong at work—that sparked my decision to do a complete 180. The tipping point came when the fear of regretting overpowered the fear of starting over. It forced me to be completely honest with myself. It was the simple realisation that staying in unfulfilling situations—despite following society’s timeline— was not doing future-me any good. Though the aftermath was a painful process of navigating singlehood and rebuilding an identity outside of a career, I learnt an invaluable lesson: Cutting my losses and letting go of situations that no longer serve me.
Last summer, on a train from Paris to Nice, I read The Bell Jar by poet Sylvia Plath. In one chapter, the protagonist used a fig tree as a metaphor for her life. On each branch hung numerous fruits, each representing a different future: As a famous author, having a stable family life and a happy home, a life as a world traveller, being a mysterious artist with a string of lovers across Europe. Paralysed by the infinite possibilities, she is unable to settle on any one fig, while in the meantime, the fruits start rotting away.
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This is a dilemma that we 20-somethings know all too well: Choice overload. Apart from the fear of not hitting milestones, we grapple with too many options and too little time. Should I go back to school and get my Master’s degree? Spend a year abroad working on a farm in New Zealand? Lock in a high-paying corporate job and retire by 40? The cold, hard truth is that while we may have the chance to savour a few different fruits in our lifetime, we simply can’t taste them all. As we muse over the various possibilities, we struggle with accepting that we can’t seize them all. But instead of being laser-focused on following a specific path or viewing risks as life-altering decisions—which often leads to an unhealthy fear of failure—perhaps a better way to gain more clarity about the future is to know what you do not want. It prevents us from going down unfulfilling paths while instilling a sense of reassurance that we’re still on track to achieving our goals. As we navigate our decade of transformation and change, being adaptable allows us to transmute life’s inevitable curveballs into opportunities for growth and reflection.
At the heart of the quarter-life crisis is the fear of the unknown. We’re afraid of things not working out, disappointing our parents, and giving our dreams our everything yet ending up with nothing to show for it. But I now realise that the biggest risk you can take in your 20s is to play it safe and hope life happens to work out the way you want it to. Because without embracing discomfort and change, we have no incentive to grow. So take the leap of faith—you’ll figure it out, eventually.