Good morning and happy weekend! I’ll be brief, but basically I’ve been going through an existential crisis for a few months now (I’m 21). I don’t know who I am, I feel lost most of the time. Next year I have to start a degree, and I don’t know which one to choose, and I feel like every decision I make contradicts the previous one. I’ve looked for answers to my “problems” in many places—music, friends, psychology, money… but I haven’t managed to find them, possibly because there isn’t a single answer. Still, I’d like to know if anyone who has gone through something similar has found a book (or anything else) that helped them find themselves, get to know themselves, or find direction.
Thank you very much for reading. Cheers!
by _whitepony
3 Comments
The power of now by Eckhart Toole
Honestly at 21 I don’t think any book solved it for me, it was more like certain books made me feel less alone in not knowing. Which isn’t the same thing but it helped.
The one that actually stuck was Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Something about the idea that you get to choose who you are rather than just inherit it. Read it in a bad patch in my late twenties and it landed differently than it would have at 21 I think. Might be worth trying anyway.
Also not a book but. The not knowing is the answer for a bit. 21 is supposed to feel like this. You’re not behind.
The Magus by John Fowles. Go in blind.