overqualified, overwhelmed, and undecided; why young people feel lost today
addressing the youth clarity crisis
across the world, from mumbai to madrid to manhattan, millions of young adults are quietly wrestling with the same silent crisis… a gnawing confusion about where they’re headed, what they want, and why nothing feels quite right. they are overqualified by degree, overwhelmed by expectations, and undecided by circumstance. despite being called the “most connected” or “most educated” generation, many of them feel profoundly lost.
according to linkedin’s global survey, 75% of 25 to 33-year-olds have experienced a quarter-life crisis, with the average age of onset being just 27. more than half of them said they were actively looking for guidance, but didn’t know where to turn.
but how did we get here?
walk into a coffee shop today and look at any 25-year-old’s screen. there’s a résumé draft in one tab, a coursera course in another, a notion page titled “2025 goals,” an excel budget, a saved instagram reel about freelancing in bali, and maybe a paused therapy session link they’ve been meaning to schedule.
our generation is trying to build clarity in an environment designed to dismantle it.
it’s the aftermath of a world that changed too fast, too often. most of us came of age during or just after the 2008 financial crash. then came the pandemic. then the ai boom. then mass layoffs. and now, in the post-covid economy, everything from work to relationships feels like a shifting puzzle.
what do you anchor your dreams to when the ground beneath keeps moving?
for many young adults, especially those in their twenties, the map of adulthood handed down by previous generations no longer works. that map had clear directions ‘graduate, get a job, marry by 30, buy a house, retire with a pension.’
today that map leads nowhere.
instead, we face what psychologists call “choice overload.” we can be coders, creators, chefs, consultants, travelers, entrepreneurs, content writers, vcs, or full-time meme-makers. we’re told we can be anything, yet we don’t know what we should be. every decision feels like a trapdoor. once you pick wrong, and you fear wasting years, money, or your one shot at happiness.
one study from masaryk university found that being the first generation with near-unlimited options actually delayed career decisions and marriages. people froze. with more possibilities came more anxiety and more fear of making the “wrong” call.
even after making a choice, it’s common to second-guess it. what if there was something better? what if everyone else figured it out before you?
that’s the mental tax of abundance. you’re exhausted from evaluating a hundred potential paths and not knowing which one won’t betray you later.
the pressure to be more. always more.
earlier generations had fewer choices, yes, but also fewer disruptions. today, a job skill can become irrelevant in 18 months. a company can vanish overnight. the dream of a steady, upward career is now a meme. instead, the new religion is ‘upskill or perish.’
every scroll brings an ad telling you to become a ux designer, a blockchain analyst, or a personal branding expert. even rest has been monetized! if you’re not meditating efficiently, you’re wasting potential. young professionals today aren’t just trying to grow. they’re trying to outrun their own irrelevance.
this constant forward motion feels like progress, but it’s often just panic in disguise.
according to uk mental health data, 60% of youth feel overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed.
they’re all trying to find something solid to stand on. but when every path feels unstable, clarity becomes a luxury.
why self-help feels like a scam now
here’s the irony. in the middle of all this uncertainty, there’s an entire industry shouting that you can fix your life… in five steps or less.
manifest. visualize. meditate. journal. grind.
now, none of these things are bad. but the problem is they assume that the root of your confusion is personal. that it’s your mindset. your limiting beliefs. your laziness. your lack of discipline.
what they forget is it’s the system that’s disoriented.
you're trying to build a career during economic instability. you're navigating dating in the age of swipes and ghosting. you're trying to feel confident when every ad tells you you're behind. you're overwhelmed because your generation has more input and less guidance than any before.
in india, for example, youth are pressured to pursue safe careers that are often against their deeper interests. then they’re told to “find their passion” in their late twenties while dealing with marriage pressure and financial strain.
in the u.s., student debt strangles risk-taking. in europe, job markets promise education but rarely deliver opportunity. in every region, you see the same pattern repeating itself, well-intentioned youth pulled in too many directions without a single anchor.
no amount of daily affirmations can undo that chaos unless we first acknowledge it.
so what helps?
here are some ideas worth holding on to…
1. letting go of “the one right path”
there isn’t one. there never was. life is a canvas you keep painting. some strokes will be messy. some will be wrong. that’s the only way the picture ever gets interesting.
2. choosing curiosity over certainty
you don’t have to be obsessed. you just have to be interested. in something. in someone. in an idea that pulls you gently forward. clarity doesn’t come from knowing everything. it comes from doing something, even if it’s small.
in my case, building
is one such idea that’s pulling me gently forward.3. tuning out the performance noise
unfollow people who make you feel behind. take breaks from feeds that blur your vision. spend time with people who aren’t obsessed with optimizing every second of their day. sometimes, it’s in slow conversations and long walks that your real questions resurface.
4. giving yourself permission to be in-between
you're not supposed to have it all figured out at 25. or 27. or even 30. life is allowed to be vague. you are allowed to not know. that doesn’t make you less. it just makes you human.
in the end, this is what i know
everyone i know is figuring it out as they go.
even the ones who look sorted. even the ones who post wins. even the ones who seem immune to doubt.
so if you’re reading this and feeling behind, you’re not.
if you’re tired of trying to explain why you don’t feel “settled” yet, you don’t have to.
and even if the world doesn’t slow down for you, you can slow down for yourself.
that clarity doesn’t arrive as a revelation. it arrives in fragments, stitched together by trial, by time, by tenderness.
and one day, without realizing it, you’ll look back and see that you weren’t lost.
you were becoming.