existential crisis, advice session

- Welcome back to Advice Session, a series here on Anything Goes where you send in your current dilemmas or anything, and I mean literally anything you want advice on. And then I give you my unprofessional advice. And today's topic is existential crises. Yeah, fun. It's a fun one, right? Existential crises. I hate the plural word for crisis, crises, I hate it. Like I want to call Miriam Webster and say, "Can we please figure out something else?" I don't know what to change it to, like I don't have an idea, I don't have a suggestion, but I hate crises. It doesn't roll off the tongue for me. But that is ultimately our topic today. And if you don't know what an existential crisis is, let me tell you. An existential crisis is a period of profound questioning about life's meaning, purpose, and one's own identity, often triggered by major life transitions or losses. It's characterized by inner conflict, anxiety, and a feeling of meaninglessness, leading to distress and despair. These crises, while difficult, can be opportunities for growth, pushing individuals to reevaluate their values and find greater personal meaning. That is what an existential crisis is. And I've experienced many in my life, and I imagine I'll experience many more. It's an inevitable human experience. We're gonna experience existential crises throughout our life about various different things. And I think the definition put it beautifully. It's uncomfortable, it's challenging, but it is an opportunity for growth. And so without further ado, let's begin. I briefly interrupt this episode to let you know that this episode is presented by The Ordinary. Self-care is important, but it can be super expensive, right? Especially when you're talking skincare products. Thankfully, The Ordinary is focused on quality skincare that's priced to make great skincare accessible to everyone. And that genuinely works. Formulations created in their lab designed to give your skin precisely what it needs. They've even made a free regimen builder on their website if you don't know where to start. Use code MSC10 for 10% off at TheOrdinary.com. Now back to the episode. Somebody said, "Why am I terrified to fall in love? Is this normal?" It's incredibly normal, because falling in love is one of the most vulnerable experiences of our entire life, I think, in my opinion. And here's why. Because not only is it emotionally vulnerable, not only are you bearing your soul to another person, all of your thoughts, feelings, love are all splayed out on the table in front of this person, but there's also a sexual vulnerability as well. There's a physical vulnerability, which is what I think sets it apart from loving a family member, loving a friend, loving an animal. That's also a very vulnerable experience, but it lacks that physical dimension. And that makes falling in love romantically, in my opinion, the most vulnerable human experience possible. Which can be incredibly rewarding. I think we're all well aware of that. We all grew up watching rom-coms, watching princess movies. We know the happily ever after. We know how wonderful it can be. We don't need to be reminded of that. As much as it can be wonderful, that doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean it's not terrifying. That doesn't mean you're not gonna get hurt along the way. There's a lot to be frightened by. And I'm not saying that to deter you from falling in love. I'm saying that to reassure you that your fear is normal. However, something that I've learned in my life is that anything worth doing is frightening. The most fulfilling things in life are a little bit frightening. Stuff that's meaningful, stuff that's life changing is usually a bit scary. It requires the most bravery. Stuff that's easy is just less rewarding. It's just, it's low hanging fruit, you know? It's right there. You can just pick it right off. So it's gonna be less valuable. Things that require effort, bravery, courage, bravery and courage are kind of the same word. That's the most rewarding fulfilling stuff in life. But it's a bit harder to get. It's a bit scarier to get. It's completely normal to be afraid of falling in love because it requires the utmost vulnerability in a way that exposes you more than you'll ever be exposed in any other situation. Being vulnerable is terrifying because I like to think of it like this. It's like vulnerability is like being cut open. This is very graphic, actually. So sorry if you're squeamish, but I really do think of it like this. Vulnerability is like being cut open in a way. It's like having your stomach cut open. This is actually too graphic, I think. Let me pivot. Let me pivot to a different, less graphic metaphor. It's like being naked, you know? If a gust of wind comes by, you get cold because you're naked, you don't have clothes on. If someone takes a photo of you now, they have a photo of your entire nude body. Like, do you get what I'm saying? Like, if you're not wearing clothes, you're more vulnerable, you're exposed. You can get hurt more easily. See, I could have just said that. I could have literally just said, well, when you're being vulnerable, you're exposed and you can get hurt more easily. But instead I was like, well, being vulnerable is like having your stomach cut open. It's like the same thing. Anyway, that's weird and I don't know why. But that's actually how I think of it in my head. I think of it as having like an open wound. Vulnerability is like an open wound. And if taken care of properly, the open wound can be kept clean and it's all good. But an open wound is very vulnerable. If a little bit of dirt gets in there, if you put salt in there, like you can really hurt the wound more so than just tough skin. Do you know what I'm saying? I need to work on this metaphor. I'll come back to you with a better metaphor in like six months. Being afraid of being vulnerable is so natural because you're simply exposed. There's more risk of getting hurt. Parts of yourself that you normally protect inside, things that you normally protect under close, literally, because you're naked a lot of times in front of people that you're romantically involved with, right? Especially romantically in love with. All these things that you keep so close to your heart, all these things that you protect to the entire world, you now expose to a person. All the things that you're used to protecting are now exposed. That is terrifying. So my advice to you is don't be so hard on yourself. It is completely normal to be afraid. However, don't let it stop you. Let it make you picky. Let it force you to critically think about who you're gonna fall in love with, you know? I mean, not that you can always choose that. You definitely can't, but I don't know. If you fall in love with somebody who's kind of toxic and you kind of know that, you can be like, all right, I have to jump ship. I have to like, I can't succumb to this. You know what I'm saying? Don't let it stop you, but let it make you picky. There's nothing wrong with being picky. I think that's a superpower. I think a lot of times we underestimate how vulnerable being in love is and how exposed we do feel and how hurt we can get. If we choose the wrong people to involve ourselves with romantically, it's so much better to be picky and analytical and make sure that it's somebody who has good morals and values, who respects us, who's not gonna turn around and fuck us over and break our hearts, you know? Now listen, even with people that we think are trustworthy and worthy of our love can sometimes turn around and fuck us over too. But there's nothing wrong with being choosy. You just don't wanna be too choosy because then you end up with expectations so high that no one can reach them, nobody can meet them. And then you, and then, so it's complicated. That's why all of this is so scary because you're dealing with the most vulnerable act that you could possibly do with another human being that you can't fully predict the actions of. You can't fully control. You're taking a risk inevitably any time you're falling in love with somebody and becoming romantically involved with them. And that's terrifying, but in order to find love and true, rewarding, fulfilling partnership with another person, we sometimes have to take that leap. But there's nothing wrong with being afraid of it and there's nothing abnormal about it either. Somebody said, "I have a vision for my life "that I'm going to do something really important "for the world, but I don't know what it is. "How do I learn to feel okay with just existing?" I think a lot of times we undermine the little things that we can do to make the world a better place. And I also think we undermine how impactful those little actions are. Like just smiling at somebody, a stranger, can make somebody's day. Just complimenting somebody's shirt can make somebody's day. Just helping somebody carry their groceries to their car can make somebody's day. I think in the age of the internet, we all think of positive impact in the world as like curing diseases and helping out with worldly issues. All of those things are amazing and I'm not undermining those people's work who do those very tangible things for the world. But that's not everybody's journey. Not everybody is gonna cure diseases. Not everybody is going to save the world. You know what I'm saying? And that's okay. We don't all have to do that. That's not all of our destinies. The small stuff is just as valuable and just as impactful. In a lot of ways, it's the big stuff, I think, because, and again, some people might disagree with me about that, but I think doing your part, being as good of a person as you possibly can, and trying to provide value to the world in whatever way makes the most sense for you in this very moment is the most that you can do and is enough. I really do think the age of the internet has put this pressure on all of us to overachieve in the grand scheme of the world. And it's just, it's unhealthy because it actually takes our attention away from the day-to-day shit that actually makes a difference in real individuals' lives. It also, okay, wait, wow, I just thought about this. I think we also tend to think about our impact on the world. And we want it to be big, we want it to be grand, and we want it to be famous, okay? We want recognition for what we do for the world. But that's not what it's about. It's for some people, it is, for whatever reason. You know that if you believe in fate, that was their fate. If you just believe in randomness, like for whatever reason, that's where this specific individual ended up. But there is so much value in treating people well, helping people in small ways that just help one person at a time. We overlook that in such an unfortunate way, I think. And I bet if you have a gut feeling that you're gonna do something really important for the world, that is fucking amazing. And I truly believe that the universe, or fate, or destiny, whatever the fuck it is, it'll all come together at some point. But in the meantime, you can still do something very good for the world. And that's just small little acts of love and kindness and generosity for the people around you in your community that you run into when you're traveling. It doesn't matter, just for the people you interact with in real life on a daily basis. That is just as important as doing some big picture sort of thing. I really believe this so deeply and so wholeheartedly. It really is sad to me that we all feel like if we don't do something so big that everyone in the whole world knows about it, that we haven't done enough. I think it's a real shame. And so I would say my advice to you on how to feel okay with just existing is to focus on the small little things you can do right now that make the world a better place and put some value into those things. Acknowledge the value in those things. Stop undermining that because you have this grandiose idea about having this massive impact on the world. I would argue that doing one big thing that impacts the world in a positive way is equal to living a life of kindness and warmth and positivity and generosity on a daily basis like helping people daily, providing value daily in small little ways over a five year, 10 year period is equivalent to doing one big thing. Do you see what I'm saying? Think of it like that and then you'll be able to find peace and just existing. And if that big thing that changes the world presents itself into your life, if that idea presents itself in your head, get after it, do it. But in the meantime, realize that the little things can compile into something big and maybe that's what your purpose is, is to be a light for people, is to be a light for 20 different people in the span of a week. And maybe it's in a small way, but it can make such a big impact. I don't know, that's how I feel about that. Okay, next, somebody said, do I need to know the meaning of my life from an early age? Do these things develop over time? I'm anxious for answers. You definitely don't need to know the meaning of your life from an early age. And I absolutely think that these things develop over time. I think a lot of times when it comes to our purpose, our meaning, all of these things, I think when we put pressure on figuring out what it is, it actually leads us further away from what our purpose really is in life. I think a lot of times our purpose is much more subtle. It whispers for our attention, it doesn't scream. It's not gonna be obvious. It'll quietly creep into your mind one day. When you're doing something genuine that's authentic to you and you'll realize, wait a minute, this is what I'm good at. This is the value I provide to the world, you know? If you're digging for it and trying to find it and you're chaotically looking for it, if you're chasing it, I don't know that you'll find it. I think with patience and with living a life with clear morals and values and through living authentically and genuinely to yourself, which I know is like much easier said than done, much easier said than done, I think that's how your purpose and your meaning sort of presents itself. And I think a lot of times too, we're looking for something much more significant than what our purpose actually might be. I feel like one of my purposes in life is to bring comfort to people. That's it, it's that simple. Just to bring comfort to people. Like I discovered that sort of purpose a few years ago, very subtly and on accident. I just started to notice in my life that I had sort of a comforting effect on a lot of people when I was doing things that were authentic to me. Like for example, making YouTube videos, my YouTube videos have brought a lot of comfort to people, which is all I could ever dream of. And in my personal life, the way that I lead a conversation just organically tends to be comforting to people. And so without even really trying to force the discovery, it came to me, maybe one of my purposes in this life is to bring people comfort, is to make people feel less alone, is to just make people feel heard and understood and safe. That's a pretty simple purpose because I don't necessarily need to be doing that on a wide scale for it to be my purpose. In my particular circumstance, I'm on the internet and I do hopefully provide comfort. I mean, I do provide comfort to some people through my video content, through my podcast content, whatever, but that also goes in my personal life. Even if I was not on the internet, I would be doing the same thing privately on a smaller scale and it would be equally as meaningful, okay? I think it comes to you when you're doing what feels true to you in your life and you're listening to your intuition and you're living for you, you're doing things for you, you're not listening to other people, you're not listening to the algorithm, you're not listening to pop culture. When you're truly tapped in to you and existing as such, I think it just comes to you. And I really do think that the saying I don't chase, I attract actually really does apply here. I don't think you can chase it. I think it just comes to you. And you know what? This is incredible news for you because as you said, you're anxious for answers. Well, guess what? I give you permission to let it go and to focus on what you can control, which is living a genuine, authentic life, making decisions for yourself, abiding by your personal morals and values, making your own goals for yourself, big or small, and pushing towards them. If you're existing in that type of mindset, I really do believe that your purpose will come to you. But even then, okay, even though I feel like I have a loose idea of one of my sole purposes on this planet, I still don't know why I'm here. I don't really know what my purpose is. You know, I mean, I'm only 24 years old. I have so much more learning to do. I might die and not have a full solid grasp on my personal meaning or my purpose. I mean, I think it's to bring comfort to people. It feels like that's right. It feels like making people feel less alone is part of my purpose. But like, if somebody were to ask me, what is the meaning of your life? I would hesitantly answer to make people feel safe and comforted and less alone. Because I don't really know. I don't know if we ever really know, and that's okay. I don't know. I would give more well-rounded advice about this, but I don't think I'm at a point in my life where I can confidently say, this is how you find a solid sense of meaning in life. I don't even know if anyone knows their meaning in this life with 1,000% confidence. Right now, at this point in my life, I would say I'm confident in my purpose, but it is a bit abstract in my brain. It's not like this obvious, glaringly obvious purpose. I don't know, it's tough because it's all abstract. Do you know what I mean? In time, we'll tell if we'll ever really know for sure what our purpose or our meaning is. Only time will tell. But I would say for now, at least to get a little bit of a grasp on it, you have to let it go and let it come to you. And it might not feel as obvious or as crystal clear as you might want it to feel, but that might be all it is. It's like this little instinct of like, you know what, I think this is my purpose. That's all I got, but I'm actually happy with that. I would say let it go and stop trying to chase answers. Let it come to you through living a genuine authentic life. Somebody said, how do I figure out who I want to be in life? Well, I think there's a few ways that you can do that. Number one, look to people that you admire. Who are people that you admire in your life? And what traits do they have that you wish you had? Or what traits do they have that you admire that, wait a minute, you also have? Also, think about your priorities in your values in your life. What do you think is important to prioritize? And then become the type of person that can abide by those values and priorities. I mean, I honestly think that's the answer. It's a combination of looking at people that you admire and acknowledging the traits that they have that you think are the most wonderful and then figuring out ways to incorporate their wonderfulness into your own personality and your own habits and your own behavior. And a lot of times that's more subconscious than it is conscious, but I think there's so much that we can learn from others and what they have that we don't. And so I think that's one part of it. And then the other part of it is having a clear set of morals, values and priorities that can then shape how you exist in the world, what you do with your time, how you treat other people. And then naturally you just become the person that you want to be. It's kind of foolproof. You're mimicking people that you admire or not even mimicking, that's the wrong word, but you're learning from people that you admire and you're abiding by a set of morals and values and priorities, like how could you go wrong? I think that's the simple recipe. Next, somebody said, "I don't know if I should go back to school, start a new career, or just travel and enjoy my 20s." What do you think? A decision like this is tough because on one hand, you want to enjoy your life. You're only in your 20s once. Going and traveling for a year sounds awesome. You'll definitely make incredible memories doing that. But at the same time, as an adult, there is a level of responsibility that we have to prepare for the future. Whether we like it or not, that is the truth, you know? So if taking a year to travel around is irresponsible because perhaps financially it doesn't make sense. For our future, it doesn't make sense because maybe we don't really know where our career is going. It also might be valuable to explore career options instead. Like it might be more valuable for our future selves to get that sorted out as soon as possible rather than run away from that problem and go and travel. So it's tough. Like it's about striking a balance between fulfillment and enjoyment and fun, but also responsibility and delayed gratification. It's about finding a balance there. And to be honest, only you can figure that out. But I think if I had to give some advice on how to figure it out, I would say, number one, ask yourself, what choice is going to lead you closer to living the life you wanna live in 10 years? Which of those options are going to get you closer to that goal, that idea you have of what your life looks like? If in 10 years, you want to be working in another country and you wanna have a job somewhere else, maybe traveling makes the most sense because if you wanna move, you gotta explore the world to figure out where you're gonna go. If you have a very particular goal for your work and it's gonna be a long journey, perhaps you wanna be a lawyer. Let's say you wanna be a lawyer. That takes a long time. You might wanna get going on that. You know what I mean? But is that even the answer? Maybe not. Maybe you're like, you know what? I will regret for the rest of my life not taking this time in my 20s to travel. I will regret it for the rest of my life. I'm only 20 once. I only have this yearning for adventure once. I only have this energy once. I need to just go do it and then I'll come back from it and it'll be energized and ready to go to law school so that I can become a lawyer. You know what I'm saying? There are so many different directions that you can go. Truly only you can decide. But I think considering your life 10 years down the line can be incredibly helpful. But also what is going to force you to grow the most? Perhaps that's traveling. Perhaps that's going to school. Perhaps that's starting to work. I don't know. Only you can decide. And my last piece of advice would be make a pros and cons list. I'm not even kidding. Get out a piece of paper and make a pros and cons list for every single option. Traveling in your 20s, going back to school, starting a new career. Make a pros and cons list for all of them and be honest with yourself. Write down everything and then sit with it and stare at it. And then after you've sat in stared for a little while, come up with a potential plan for each option. Come up with a plan for what your year of traveling in your 20s would look like. Come up with a plan for school. Come up with a plan for work. And then once you have those plans sorted, try to figure out which of these seems the most balanced. I think that's the right word for it, balanced. Obviously traveling is going to be the most fun. If I could travel all day long, I think if everybody could just travel every day all the time, we all would. It's fun, but just because something's fun doesn't mean it's automatically good for us. I think what we should be looking for is balance. What you should be looking for, in my opinion, is the path that balances fun with working towards your goal in life. And organizing it on paper, pros and cons lists, written out plans or strategies of how you could execute on each potential path. And then figuring out from there which option feels the most balanced, I think could be really good. But at the end of the day, no matter what you choose, you'll be okay. You know what I mean? Let's say you choose to go back to school and you end up hating it and it makes you depressed. Fuck it. Drop out, then go travel. You can always pivot. If you go in one direction and then hate it, like it's not like the other two roads you could have gone are now closed. It might be a little bit challenging to get onto the other road and pivot, but you can still make it to that road. The road is not closed. The road always exists. If you go travel and then you're like, fuck, I need to get to work, to be honest. You can move home at any time, wherever home is for you at that point and go to work. You know what I mean? Like you can pivot. So don't put too much pressure on yourself to make the perfect right decision the first time. Be prepared to potentially pivot if your first choice doesn't end up working out. There's nothing wrong with that. Somebody said, I went out of state for college, but I'm struggling to know if that was the right decision. I don't really know that I believe in right or wrong decisions, to be honest. I mean, well, here's how I'll put it. In something like choosing a school, you moving out of state technically is harmless. Like you didn't make a decision that truly harmed anyone or yourself, okay? Technically that was sort of a neutral decision. Nobody, everybody's healthy. Everyone's okay. You might not like it, but you're okay. Any decision like that that's sort of neutral, I think is neither right nor wrong. It doesn't really matter if you made the right or wrong decision. Now you're out of state and you're at school. So it's not really about if you made the right or wrong decision when you made that decision. It's about figuring out what you want to do tomorrow. Who cares about if you made the right or wrong decision? There's no real such thing in this scenario. You made the decision that you made and now what? Are you happy where you're at? Or are you unhappy where you're at? Do you think it's something that you can push through? And do you think it'll improve or do you think not? Now you're just being forced to make another decision. Do you see what I'm saying? Like don't focus on the past and be like, did I make the right decision or not? Take action and figure out, okay, what do I do now? I'm not feeling happy out of state at the school. Now I'm faced with the decision of what to do next. You could leave or start creating a plan on how to leave or you could choose to give it another few months of a try. And see if it gets better. I think we shouldn't focus on if we made the right or wrong decision, but rather we should focus on the next decision we need to make in our lives to move forward. Do you see what I'm saying here? Focus on right now, the present moment and what you need to do to live a life that you enjoy as much as possible. If you're not enjoying being at school out of state, figure out if you can transfer to a community college where you grew up. I don't know how that stuff works 'cause I didn't go to college, but you get what I'm saying. If you're struggling to decide if you made the right decision, ignore that and say, who cares? It doesn't matter if I made the right or wrong decision. I made my decision and it was final and now I'm here. So now you need to figure out what the next step is. I would say focus on that instead because it's something that you can control because it's in the present moment, but also it's empowering. Focusing on whether or not you made the right decision is sort of degrading to yourself. You made that decision for a reason and you thought it was going to be good. And you know what, maybe it wasn't. That doesn't mean that it's wrong. You've definitely learned something from this, whether you realize it now or not. So for whatever reason, the universe, fate, whatever you believe in, coincidence, whatever you believe in, you were supposed to be here at this very moment for whatever reason. So there's no right or wrong decision. You're here now. Live in the moment, focus on the present and find empowerment in the fact that you have control over tomorrow. You don't have control over yesterday 'cause that's already done. But you have control over tomorrow. And so forget all of the shit in the past and focus on tomorrow. And that's it, you guys. That's it. That's all I got for today. I hope you all enjoyed this episode. If you did, new episodes of "Advice Session" every other Sunday and new episodes of "Anything Goes" in general on Thursdays and Sundays. Every single week, twice a week, available anywhere you stream podcasts. Although if you wanna watch a video, that's only on Spotify and YouTube. "Anything Goes" is on social media at anything goes. I'm on social media at Emma Chamberlain. And my coffee company is on the internet and in the world at Chamberlain Coffee. So I'm around. You can find me if you want to. As always, it's a pleasure to hang out. It really is. And luckily, we get to talk very soon. So I guess I'll talk to you then. Bye.