Existential Crisis

Among the several types of existential crises are:

Crisis of freedom and responsibility

You have the power to make decisions that can affect your life for the better or for, the worse. Most people would rather have this independence than have someone else determine their decisions for them. However, with freedom comes responsibility. You must accept the ramifications of your decisions. You can’t blame anyone else if you utilize your freedom to make a bad decision. Among some, this freedom is too much to bear, and it leads to existential anxiety, which is a generalized fear of life’s purpose and choices.

Death and mortality crisis

After reaching a certain age, an existential crisis can strike. For example, your 50th birthday may compel you to confront the truth that half of your life has passed you by, causing you to reassess your life’s basis. You might ponder the meaning of life and death, or you might wonder, “What occurs after death?” Anxiety might be triggered by the fear of what comes after death. This type of crisis can also happen when you’ve been diagnosed with a serious illness or when you’re about to die.

Isolation and connectedness crises

Humans are social beings, even if they appreciate periods of solitude and seclusion. Strong bonds can provide you with mental and emotional support, as well as fulfillment and joy. Relationships aren’t always lasting, which is an issue. People can become physically and emotionally estranged, and death frequently separates family members. This can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, making some people believe their lives are meaningless.

Meaninglessness and a crisis of meaning

Having a sense of purpose and meaning in life can give people hope. However, when you look back on your life, you may feel as though you didn’t do anything or make a difference. People may begin to doubt their own existence as a result of this. Albert Camus, a French philosopher, journalist, and author, claimed that the ability to be passionate about something that could otherwise be considered useless demonstrates a love for life itself. If you can stop focusing on the final result, or “goal,” and instead focus on the act of “being” itself, your life will become about living it fully, choosing integrity, and being passionate. This seems very similar to the medical model of anxiety’s foundation for mindfulness meditation.

Authenticity

An existential crisis may push you toward authenticity, which can be stressful. You might be thinking about how short your life is and how you’re spending it. You may sense worry, but also deeper meaning when you stop taking it for granted that you will wake up each day alive.  Because you are confronted with a far larger problem, all of the ordinary day-to-day difficulties that concerned you so much no longer appear to matter, and all of your thoughts, fears, and anxiety about the mundane melt away. Will any of this matter at the end of your life? Will it make a difference what you do for a living, how much money you have, or what car you drive?

Major Life Event or Life Stage

Many people go through existential crises when they go from infancy to maturity or from adulthood to senior living. Graduations, starting a new job or changing careers, marriage or divorce, having children, and retirement are all examples of major life events that might trigger an existential crisis.

Fear and responsibility

Existentialism emphasizes that we are all free to make decisions in our lives and that with that freedom comes responsibility. However, given your ultimate fate of death, your acts may appear insignificant when seen in the context of your entire existence. Freedom can lead to sorrow in this sense, and the responsibility that comes with it can generate anxiety. How many times have you been torn between two options and worried that you made the wrong choice? This anxiety over making the wrong decision reflects fundamental concerns about freedom.

Existentialists argue that our uneasiness or angst stems from the fact that there is no “correct” path or guidance to tell us what to do. In the end, we must all find meaning in our own lives. If the weight of this obligation becomes too much for us to bear, we may retreat into behaviors that protect us from anxiety.

Emotional, experiential, and embodiment crises

Letting yourself be overwhelmed by unpleasant emotions can lead to an existential crisis. Some people believe that blocking off pain and suffering will make them happy. However, it frequently leads to a false sense of happiness. And life can feel empty if you don’t experience true bliss. Embodying emotions and accepting feelings of anguish, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction, on the other hand, can lead to personal growth and a better attitude on life.

Before we move to the example of Existential crisis, it is pertinent to mention that, in his essay, The Last Messiah, Peter Wessel Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher and nihilist, established four ways that he believes all self-conscious individuals adopt to cope with their awareness of indifference and absurdity in existence: anchoring, isolation, distraction, and sublimation:

Anchoring:

“Fixation of points within, or creation of walls around, the liquid fray of awareness” is what anchoring is. Individuals are given a value or an ideal via the anchoring mechanism, which allows them to focus their attention in a consistent manner. “God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future,” Zapffe said, citing God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, and the future as examples of collective fundamental anchoring firmaments.

Isolation: 

It is defined as “the arbitrary removal of every bothersome and damaging thought and feeling from consciousness.”

Distraction:

When “one limits attention to the crucial bounds by constantly captivating it with perceptions,” it is said to be distracted. To keep the mind from spiraling in on itself, distraction focuses all of one’s efforts on a task or concept.

Sublimation:

Sublimation is the process of redirecting energy from bad to good channels. Individuals take a step back and consider their existence from an aesthetic standpoint (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Sublimation, according to Zapffe, was the source of his written works. Others argue that an existential crisis is a positive thing, a burden that distinguishes gifted persons and deep thinkers from those who don’t think deeply about life:

Why is it that gifted people have a disproportionate amount of existential concerns? Partly, this is due to the fact that serious thought and meditation are required to even contemplate such ideas, rather than simply focusing on the mundane aspects of life (James Webb, “Existential depression in gifted individuals).