If your early twenties are for your Sylvia Plath fig tree allegory crisis, then your late twenties are for your Joan Didion Goodbye to All That crisis. In her famous 1967 essay, Didion writes, “That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.”
This episode explores a strain of existential dread that often shows up in your late twenties: the possibility crisis. Sometimes it hits you after capital-S Something happens. A bad break up, a wounding professional failure, or a friendship ending that felt like betrayal. Other times, there is no one defining moment or incident. You just realize one day that you are no longer as bright eyed, bushy tailed, or hopeful as you used to be, and can’t put your finger on why.
Using Didion’s Goodbye to All That as our guide, we break down three key signs you might be experiencing a possibility crisis and what it might be trying to teach you. Along the way, we talk about how to cope with the realization that certain doors really do close, what to do when new people stop feeling full of promise, and how to let go of the fantasy that someday you’ll magically know what you’re doing. Consider this episode a field guide on the strange grief of growing up.
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00 Intro
04:23 What made Joan Didion great?
05:13 Signs of a Goodbye to All That crisis
05:46 1. You realize future you is just you
07:41 Weird girl money
08:22 The 90s’ overly adult depiction of your 30s
10:41 2. You stop believing in new faces
11:32 Hope springs eternal on Love Island
12:09 Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first
12:58 POV you’re 28 & have met every person alive
13:55 3. Some doors are actually closing
14:52 The first time I felt a door close
16:14 When the doors start slamming left & right
17:03 It’s easy to see beginnings and harder to see ends
18:54 Perspective shifts that got me out of this crisis
19:29 1. Idk what I’m doing but neither does anyone else
20:59 2. Trust means more when it’s a choice not an instinct
21:45 3. On “it’s never too late”
22:27 Possibility must be unactualized to exist
23:10 The U-shaped happiness curve
23:55 Has the internet made the possibility crisis start earlier?
24:28 Socioemotional selectivity theory
25:25 The happy ending Joan Didion doesn’t tell you
EPISODE LINKS
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