What Even Is The Point?
There comes a point in in everyone’s life where your life just stops feeling the way it used to. The routines, the goals, the friendships, even the version of yourself you’ve been building starts to feel a little distant, almost like you’re going through the motions without really connecting to them. That’s what an existential crisis feels like. It hits at the most random times. You could be lying in bed scrolling on TikTok or sitting in class and suddenly the thought comes up, “What’s the point of any of this?” and once that question lands it doesn’t really leave. It lingers and starts to affect how you see everything else.
You begin to question things you never really thought about before. The path you’re on, the choices you’ve made, the goals you’ve been working towards. Things that once felt so clear start to feel uncertain. You might even look back at your own life and think ‘Do I actually want this, or have I just been doing what I thought I was supposed to do?’. At its core, an existential crisis is about meaning. Growing up, we’re given a general idea of how life is supposed to pan out. Do well in school, get into university, build a career, find love, be happy. It’s simple and structured. Pretty easy to follow, but at some point, you start to question that structure. You start asking yourself why instead of just what’s next and that’s when things start to change.
There isn’t always a clear answer to why and when you realize that it can make everything feel a little empty. Achievements don’t feel as satisfying as you expected, things you used to enjoy don’t hit the same way. You might find yourself feeling disconnected, like your life looks fine from the outside but doesn’t fully make sense to you on the inside. It’s confusing and sometimes it really is exhausting. Yet, it’s also important to understand that this doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It actually means you’re becoming more self-aware. You’re starting to think beyond what you’ve been told and question what genuinely matters to you.
Before this point, a lot of us are just following a path that feels logical. We do things because they make sense, or because they’re expected, or because they’ve always been part of the plan. An existential crisis interrupts that, forcing you to pause and ask whether the plan is really yours or not. That question can make you feel stuck. When nothing feels certain it’s hard to feel confident about any decision. You might feel like you’re in between versions of yourself, you’re not who you used to be but you’re also not sure of who you’re becoming. There’s also a kind of freedom in it.
If there isn’t one fixed meaning to life, then you’re not chained into one way of living it. You have the ability to decide what matters to you, even if you’re still figuring it out. That doesn’t mean everything suddenly becomes clear, but it does mean you’re no longer just following something blindly.
Meaning starts to become a bit more personal. Instead of chasing things because they seem important, you start to pay attention to what actually feels important to you. That might be the way certain people make you feel, moments where you feel genuinely present or goals that feel aligned with who you are rather than how you’re perceived. These things may seem small, but they all start to add up.
I think it’s also worth noting that this experience is more common than it feels, and a lot of people go through this stage whether it be in their late teens or early twenties, when everything is changing and you’re starting to take more ownership over your life. it might feel isolating but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. That doesn’t really make it any easier though. There will be moments where everything feels heavy, where you question your choices, your direction and yourself. When that happens, it might help to focus on what’s in front of you rather than trying to figure out everything at once. You don’t need to solve your entire life in one sitting. I think any kind of clarity is still clarity regardless of whether its big or small.
Instead of asking huge, overwhelming questions like “what’s the meaning of life?” it may help to ask smaller ones. What feels meaningful right now? What kind of person do I want to be today? Those questions are easier to sit with and they give you some relief. Over time, your relationship with these questions changes and you stop needing one final answer and start accepting that meaning and purpose can shift and evolve. What matters to you now might not be what matters to you in a few years and that’s completely okay.
An existential crisis doesn’t mean you’ve lost meaning completely, it just means that you’re no longer accepting meaning without questioning it and even though it may feel uncomfortable, it also gives you something valuable like the ability to create a life that actually feels like it’s yours. It doesn’t have to be prefect or fully figured out as long as your content.
