TIPS for identifying the signs your headed for a quarter life crisis!

Feeling destructive? Reckless? Lost? Unhinged? Out of touch with reality? Don't stress...you're probably just on the brink of a fully-fledged quarter life crisis. Here are some tips to help you self diagnose and then appropriately self medicate your twenty something blues away...

• You've become ridiculously impressionable. You meet new people, read a new book, watch a new show and all of a sudden what those people are doing is what you absolutely HAVE to do with your life and everything you've done up until that point has been complete rubbish. Your long standing goals and passions from as recently as a week ago are a distant memory and you cannot begin to understand how you were ever happy with your mediocre life.

• You're almost certain you've become bi-polar overnight because mentally your up and down like a bride's nightie. Your lows usually come in the form of a 3-day hangover and your highs, well they are just scary. You're happy so long as you have something to look forward to, a concert, a friend's going away party, this weeks gossip girl and as soon as you have nothing in the foreseeable future your looking for a stool and a length of rope. 

• You've got about as much follow through as Amy Winehouse at rehab BUT your amazing at chewing the ear off anyone who will listen to you talk about your great new plans for the future. 

• Anything that relies on you for its well being is in struggle city. The plants are dead and your dog now looks more like a rat. You just looked in the mirror and you look no better. 

• You're consuming at least 3 coffees before 10am and then wondering why you feel so antsy. 

• Your desperately in love with Edward Cullen. 

• Your sense of self-worth and achievement is largely measured by your popularity on Facebook and your updating your status within an inch of its life.

If this is you...take my advice, pull your thumb out, two words...FUCK IT!

REVOLTING AGAINST CHANGE

Humans, by nature, are creatures of habit, but how much of this is a love of the familiar versus a fear of the unknown? How did we allow ourselves as individuals to get so stuck in our own lives? Just recently I realized I had allowed myself to become completely stagnant, somehow convinced that my daily life was fulfilling because it looked good on paper. I was hanging on with an iron fist to the remnants of a life that was leaving me behind, I was revolting against change - a very dangerous game to play. 2008 started for me with a near death experience of sorts, the accident a result of my fear to take the plunge and the rest of the year followed in much the same way - with me never quite taking that leap. In the wake of a new year I find myself feeling like an entirely different person, with a new mantra. 2009 will be the year of 'FUCK IT' - Fuck responsibility, fuck convention and fuck fear. I'll do what i want to do instead of what society expects me to do. A very wise woman gave me this advice in a dark moment; "Change happens first with discontent - Your psyche moves slowly, these things can't be rushed. Great change has already taken place but your not realizing all the different layers and levels within you that have already shifted. The preparation for life shifts takes time - but then all of a sudden when the time is right - it moves as fast as the wind. It's not your business to get caught up in the details of the how, why or when - it's for you to dream and ponder the endless possibilities with delight, keep your detachment to your present situation and just let it unfold. The Taoist philosophy is of non-interference - the universe is and will open for you - timing is everything - be ready deep inside, the rest will follow perfectly."

The only constant thing in life is change. Don't revolt against it. Let go...evolve. It's 2009, so Fuck it.