Your crisis is my crisis, part 2

As I mentioned last week, I have no real idea how to come out of a quarter-life crisis – jobless, single, anxiety-riddened, terrified into inaction, etcetera.

However, I’ve made many discoveries (read: mistakes) in the last year or so, and I know a thing or two about how to weather it. If you are experiencing an end-of-college crisis, please, do yourself a favor and learn from my personal experience:   

Don’t yell at your mom or screen calls from friends.

Don’t stay in bed all day, make any big decisions involving your hair or believe that you will never come out of this. Don’t think too much. Don’t stop thinking altogether. Don’t project feelings of companionship onto the squirrel that lives in the tree outside your window. Don’t project feelings of companionship onto strangers on the street. Don’t fantasize about what they would be like in committed relationships (imagining them naked is fine).

Don’t let inspirational quotes impact the way you think or act for more than a couple minutes. Don’t talk about yourself too much – you rarely make sense these days. Don’t listen to crusty old men at the laundromat ramble about political conspiracies, mobile homes or anything else. (They are mentally insane, permanently. Your insanity is only temporary.) Don’t forget about your dream – what you wanted to do with your life when you were a kid. Don’t kid yourself and think that you have it worse than anybody else, really. Don’t think you’ll be alone forever. You can’t think that way. You just can’t.

Don’t communicate emotions through e-mail. Don’t cry yourself to sleep. (Go sleep on a friend’s couch instead.) Don’t convince yourself that the cat walking around your neighbor’s yard with a collar on is a stray that you need to adopt to ease your loneliness. If you have a pet, don’t take it for granted (unless it’s a fish, maybe).
If you lost your toenail clipper, don’t use your teeth. Don’t feel guilty about feeling confused. Don’t justify using Facebook or Twitter as any sort of creative outlet. If you happen to still have a MySpace – don’t. Don’t forget to drink water and to take deep breaths. Don’t overdose on NyQuil, down multiple double Jack-and-Cokes and make your friend drive you around while you holler the lyrics to Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” out the window.

Don’t think the job that rejected you is the only good job out there. Don’t commit any act of petty vandalism unless you’ve given it a good few days of serious thought. Don’t let any isolated, stressful event be the catalyst for your purchase of any sort of habit-forming accessory, especially from the “$40 and up” shelf. Don’t terminate a friendship or relationship based solely on your reading of a single chapter in a single self-help book. Don’t give up.

Do put more of your mistakes and poor behavior than would be appropriate under the umbrella excuse of it being a “learning year.” Then move on, and try to begin to figure out how on earth to grow up. Good luck.