|
→ View in browser
Last weekend, while strolling through the Dutch city I live in, I crossed paths with countless runners. It was one of those rare sunny days — an uncommon occurrence for winters in the Netherlands — but even so… there seemed to be more than usual. Or had I just never paid attention?
While thinking it over, a widely discussed explanation came to mind: Quarter-life crises are behind the surge of young adults taking up running and signing up for marathons.
From that perspective, rigorous training plans, Strava updates to friends, and run clubs to make the hobby official become a way to exert control over an increasingly unpredictable reality. Stick with it, and you’ll reach your goal. Unlike retiring early. Or buying a house by 35. All that’s still up in the air.
According to research by the non-profit that organizes the NYC Marathon, only 17% of finishers were under 30 in 2022. By 2025, that number jumped to 24%, with runners aged 25-29 making up the largest age bracket.
Personally, I never got the running hype. It never allowed me to feel that sense of control people talk about. Every time I tried going for a run, the voice in my head telling me to stop was just too loud to ignore. Still, I’m no stranger to the whole quarter-life crisis thing.
While getting my Master’s, my friend group loved to joke about our lack of job prospects — admittedly, it was 2023 and we were about to graduate with a degree in one of the most precarious industries: journalism. Feeling disillusioned was pretty common, and it wasn’t unusual for a party to end with someone’s quarter-life crisis being dissected on a balcony. In those moments, it dawned on us that the emotional turmoil and questionable decisions we once once associated with a distant relative’s midlife crisis suddenly felt uncomfortably familiar. Instead of enjoying “the best years of our lives”, many of us felt more stressed than the generations before us.
And the data backs this up: Research on life satisfaction used to show the so-called ‘smile curve’: happiest was highest in youth, dipped in the middle (hello, midlife crisis), and rebounded in later years. Unhappiness followed the opposite pattern — a hump, or an inverted smile.
But, a study published last year revisited the curve to see how things look today. Unhappiness now starts much earlier in age and steadily declines with age, showing that stress is hitting people much earlier than it used to (hello, quarter-life crisis).
And it seems to be a pretty global phenomenon: Across eight countries — ranging from the UK and Turkey to India and Brazil — between 40% and 70% of young adults aged 18-29 reported experiencing a crisis, citing reasons such as career transitions, financial difficulties, studying-based stress, and family conflict.
Of course, circumstances vary from country to country. But there are clear common threads: economic, political, and environmental uncertainty, paired with later retirement ages, slimmer chances to buy property, the possibility to ‘be anyone’, and more time spent on social media — which serves as a daily reminder of all of the above.
That’s where the element of control and attainable goal-setting comes back into the picture. Some people run marathons, others commit to writing their first novel. And more and more 20-somethings are vowing to eliminate their crisis reminders at the source: the internet.
Although 2026 is already being called the year of analog formats, the urge to get a grip on our doomscrolling habits isn’t new. I already explored this in a previous edition, which you can read here if you’re curious.
Whether it was running, writing, getting your screen time down, or something else, I’d love to hear from you: Have you gone through a quarter-life crisis yourself? And if so, what helped you cope?
Anna
|
