Where were you when you had your quarter life crisis? Picture me, a junior research analyst in a panic and working on the weekend. Downtown Sydney, Australia – A huge office building is deserted on a Saturday, floor upon floor of all things “Corporate” but no people around – empty meeting rooms, desks, chairs, and computers. If I had cared to look out the window of the 20th floor, I would have seen glorious Sydney harbor glinting in the sun with boats coming and going. Inside the office was devoid of human life except for me. For company I had the hum of the air conditioning and Bloomberg screens offering market news. Too worried to bother about the view, I was staring at a single spreadsheet in horror. This is when I realised exactly how bad I was at my job. How could I get this far, I wondered, and have so little idea about what I am doing? I had a Masters degree, I had vast experience living on three continents, I had worked in “Big 4” consulting firms – and here i was absolutely baffled by the task at hand.

The problem was that I had no precedent. I liked to pretend that I had achievements, but school and university were simply too easy, and so was my childhood. I had been lucky for 27 years, living with a nihilistic attitude, doing the bare minimum to get by as a straight B student, and now I was being found out. Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain. Was I next on the list? Hardly. But since those Sydney days (15 years later) I have come to appreciate people who are conscientious – doing things (anything, really) as if their life depended on it. The religious mantra of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you – even in a work environment. These people are impressive. But still I battle to be one of these people. My nihilistic roots run deep. If I don´t do it, someone else will – or so my logic goes when I am at my worst.

Part of this is innate, of course. We each have our own psychological makeup and we have to work with what we are given. I have a creative streak which makes me more prone to openness, and less prone to conscientiousness. In practice this means I would rather have a long, deep chat about a problem than to fix the problem immediately.

The other part of this is learnt. Habits can change you and reinforce themselves over time. This can be bad for conscientiousness (as with my first 28 years of life) or the flywheel can work in your favour if you manage to get into a groove of working hard, especially if you are working on a subject that is engaging.

This subject fascinates me. Wishing you all luck in dealing with the quarter life crisis.