Existential crisis
Earlier crises tend to be forward-looking: the individual is anxious and confused about which path in life to follow regarding education, career, personal identity, and social relationships.
Other approaches include adopting a new system of meaning, learning to accept meaninglessness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and the practice of social perspective-taking.
[3] One important aspect of many forms of existentialism is that the individual seeks to live in a meaningful way but finds themselves in a meaningless and indifferent world.
[3][5][21] For example, one's communication to one's housemates may be limited to very brief responses like a simple "yes" or "no" in order to avoid a more extended exchange or the individual reduces various forms of contact that are not strictly speaking necessary.
While this type of behavior can succeed in providing a short-term relief of the effects of the existential crisis, it has been argued that it is usually maladaptive and fails on the long-term level.
[3][31] The addictions themselves or the stress associated with existential crises can result in various health problems, ranging from high blood pressure to long-term organ damage and increased likelihood of cancer.
[41] A central factor for resolving the early teenage crisis is that meaning and purpose are found in one's new identity since independence without it can result in the feeling of being lost and may lead to depression.
[2][43][44] Existential crisis often specifically affect high achievers who fear that they do not reach their highest potential since they lack a secure plan for the future.
In contrast to the earlier existential crises, it also involves a backward-looking component: previous choices in life are questioned and their meaning for one's achievements are assessed.
[48][51] Mid-life crises can be triggered by specific events such as losing a job, forced unemployment, extramarital affairs, separation, death of a loved one, or health problems.
[2] People who managed to resolve earlier crises well tend to feel more fulfilled with their life choices, which also reflects in how their meaningfulness is perceived when looking back on them.
An additional impeding factor in contrast to earlier crises is that individuals are often unable to find the energy and youthfulness necessary to make meaningful changes to their lives.
[4] A diverse set of causes can be followed this way, ranging from religious goals, political movements, or social institutions to scientific or philosophical ventures.
It can be found and practiced in many different fields, both on a big and a small scale, such as in science, cooking, gardening, writing, regular work, or romantic relationships.
On the social level, they cause a high divorce rate and an increased number of people being unable to make significant positive contributions to society, for example, due to a lack of drive resulting from depression.
[4][54][77][55] Such an individual may, for example, dismiss altruism out of hand as a disingenuous form of selfishness or see all leaders as motivated by their lust for power rather than inspired by a grand vision.
[4][78][79] Being unable to find good reasons for making an effort, such a person remains inactive for extended periods of time, such as staying in bed all day.
[4][80] Having a positive sense of meaning, on the other hand, is associated with deeply held religious beliefs, having a clear life goal, and having dedicated oneself to a cause.
In this respect, important factors include that the career matches both one's interests and one's skills to avoid a job that is unfulfilling, lacks engagement, or is overwhelming.
[8] More rationally inclined persons tend to focus more on a careful evaluation of the sources of meaning based on solid justification through empirical evidence.
[8] In comparison to the leap of faith, this approach offers more room for personal growth due to the cognitive labor in the form of reflection and introspection involved in it and the self-knowledge resulting from this process.
Physicians and medical students, for example, may adopt a detached and technical stance in order to better deal with the tragic and disgusting aspects of their vocation.
[85][86] Cognitive behavioral therapy then consists in raising the awareness of the affected person in regards to these toxic thought patterns and the underlying core beliefs while training to change them.
In the 19th century, Thomas Carlyle wrote of how the loss of faith in God results in an existential crisis which he called the "Centre of Indifference", wherein the world appears cold and unfeeling and the individual considers himself to be without worth.
[citation needed] Søren Kierkegaard considered that angst and existential despair would appear when an inherited or borrowed world-view (often of a collective nature) proved unable to handle unexpected and extreme life-experiences.
[89] Friedrich Nietzsche extended his views to suggest that the death of God—the loss of collective faith in religion and traditional morality—created a more widespread existential crisis for the philosophically aware.
[91] Whereas Émile Durkheim saw individual crises as the by-product of social pathology and a (partial) lack of collective norms,[92] others have seen existentialism as arising more broadly from the modernist crisis of the loss of meaning throughout the modern world.
[93] Its twin answers were either a religion revivified by the experience of anomie (as with Martin Buber), or an individualistic existentialism based on facing directly the absurd contingency of human fate within a meaningless and alien universe, as with Sartre and Camus.
In contrast to this, the modern schooling system presents students with different areas of study and interest, thereby opening a wide range of career opportunities to them.
[97] The increased difficulty is described in Barry Schwartz's law, which links the costs, time, and energy needed to make a well-informed choice to the number of alternatives available.
