Quater Life Crisis

I've just been looking through some old stuff I wrote a fair while ago, and while most of it was very bad one thing caught my eye that I quite liked. My recollections a little hazy but it seems when I was twenty I had a crisis of, well I can't say belief, lets just call it a crisis. Anyway as is usual for me when crap like that happens I sat down and wrote about it, this is what came out.


Quater Life Crisis

So here I sit, twenty years old and without a fucking clue. What am I doing with my life? People all around me seem to know the answer to their own question, why can’t I answer mine?
Ever since I hit eighteen people have been pressurising me about what I’m doing with my life, they seem to think I should know. It never seemed to bother me until now. Quarter life crisis here I come.
I guess it was ok until Robbie figured it out for himself. He’s got it right too, joining the army. Nice pay, good prospects. That’s what they say. No one seems to mention the prospect of him coming back in a body bag. Impolite I suppose.
Up until Robbie decided on the army I was okay. I could justify my wasting my life away by him wasting his. We were partners, giving the middle finger to society together. Screw there propaganda telling us we should be in university or searching for a career, we were young, we were free and by God we were drunk! Talk about the mother of all hangovers. Not only do I have one hell of a headache I’m now apparently lost and in need of direction.
I suppose I could go with Robbie, that would solve my problems but I don’t think the army’s for me. I’m a bit too fat, a bit too lazy and a bit too intolerant of authority figures. No, the army and I would not be a match made in heaven.
But maybe I shouldn’t rule out all of the armed services, I could join the navy, sail about in big ships all over the world, that could be fun. Oh no, can’t swim. Bugger.
Hmm, there must be something I could do with my life. I’m a resourceful guy, did well in school, hell I even tried university once or twice. There should be plenty of prospects for people like me. Apparently not. There doesn’t seem to be too many want ads asking for a fat arsed, lazy, 20 year old who dropped out of university twice and has never finished anything he started in his life. But oh wait, he did pass English, we could definitely use him!
Ok so the business sector is out as well as the armed services. No problem, there’s plenty of other career paths. I could be a civil servant, the government is full of incompetent jackass’s, why not one more? Ah yes, there’s the problem, those jackass’s all got elected. It seems the only way for an incompetent idiot to get a job these days is for the public, in all their wisdom, to elect him to it.
So I guess that’s where I should be heading, into the friendly, welcoming world of politics. Oh yes, this could definitely work out. I’m a lying, deceitful, piece of shit, I should fit in nicely. Just one problem, I’m completely politically apathetic, it seems to get elected you at least need to believe in something and unfortunately I don’t. Well I do believe I should be having a lot more sex but apparently that’s not a platform I’m likely to get elected on, unless I suddenly turn into Bill Clinton. So on we go.
Where too now? Politics, business and killing people is out. Maybe the arts. Yes, the arts. Why didn’t I think of this before? The whole art world is full of pompous, ‘look at me I’m the greatest thing ever!’ Know it alls who call everyone ‘darling’ and are camp as fuck. I can be like that! I am like that! And I can draw…. Kind of. I can write too, you know I wrote essays in school. I also owned a guitar for several days, I never played it but I owned it. And I’m sure I could act, I took part in my drama class at school, did the miming and all that. Surely these are all things I could try and be successful at. Nope, it turns out you need talent, who’d have thunk it? Well, that’s not the whole truth really, you can make it without talent but you need to be pretty. Not a word someone would use to describe me without serious medication.
Is there anything else left on this list? Maybe I’m doing this wrong, instead of going through career options and listing why they’re not right for me I should be looking at myself. Look at my likes, my dislikes, what I’m good at and what I’m shit at. Maybe that’s the best way to figure out what to do with my life.
Looking at my attributes is not something I enjoy doing, for some reason it always depresses me, I guess it’s because I lack any that would allow me to be considered a decent human being. Maybe this is just my own self loathing talking but I do loath myself.
Okay, its going to be painful but it has to be done. Let’s start with my likes. I enjoy watching TV, sitting on my arse, a good book is always enjoyable, drinking myself into oblivion has also become something of a hobby and of course there’s the self loathing, I’ve turned that into quite the enjoyable experience. Now, what do I not enjoy? Working. Okay, that was helpful.
Maybe looking at my skills would be more helpful. I’m okay on a computer I suppose, if you can count trolling the internet for porn as being computer literate then I definitely would qualify. Other then that I don’t seem to have any demonstrative skills that I’m aware of.
Perhaps I could be one of those evangelicals you see on television all the time who go on rants about, well just about anything these days, and why that’s going to cause the end of the world. I can do rants, I’m doing one right now. And I’m cynical, surely that’s another plus. Sure I don’t believe in God, or in anything really but I don’t see why that should hinder me… Oh, right.
So, what is a guy to do? Twenty years old and without a fucking clue. I’ve got no purpose, no direction, no prospects and no skills. I think it would be fair to say things don’t look good for old Johnny. I’ve been thinking about this for a good ten minutes now and I’m stumped. Oh fuck it, I can’t be arsed. I can deal with this later, I’m only twenty after all…