The Way of the Battered Husband Ep. 1 - Quarter Life Crisis

Before we begin, I just want to give a massive thank you for all the support and the warmest of welcomes you've given me on my first ever blog 🙏. Quick shoutout to @indayclara and @sr-krasnova for commenting on my intropost. If this is the first time you've come by my blogs, I'd like to welcome you wholeheartedly to my little space on the internet. If you want know more about me, I'd like to point you to my intropost, link is here.

With that out of the way, let's begin.. 😉

What's a Quarterlife Crisis

There comes a point in your life that as you're climbing up your own mountain of challenges in life that you'll reach a certain plateau with no sight of a new higher point to climb. You feel lost and everything you've been doing up to that point becomes less and less fulfilling. This feeling.. it makes you fussy, it frustrates you because its something you can't easily shake-off. Maybe it's because you just recently fulfilled a life goal with nothing new to replace it, maybe you have been stuck in a rut for a while now, or maybe..

For some it comes late into their working lives, maybe at around 40-60 years old, hence why the phase is usually called a midlife crisis. But there are some that experience it much earlier, usually around the time they start to step out into real world and as they are getting piled on by a lot of responsibilities and obligations. For those that get this feeling at around 18-30 years old, I like to call it going through a quarterlife crisis.

The Story of My Quarterlife Crisis

It's 2011 when I entered college on the degree program that my Dad advised for me to take (BS Agricultural and Applied Economics), because at the time I didn't really know what I wanted to be back then. But don't get me wrong, I like what he suggested for me since I like science, and I'm into the whole data analysis and interpretation thing. Plus, I also took a Major in Marketing and Prices as it is the best way I can eventually work with my Dad after I graduate. It's just that halfway through college I had a series of rejected Thesis Proposals which was a requirement for me to graduate, this disheartened me a lot and slowed the progression in my degree program. The only thing that was pushing me now is thinking about the sacrifices; the money, effort, and time that will be put to waste if I don't graduate. The biggest push happened with the loss of my Dad in 2017, being the eldest among siblings, it befall on me to keep the house standing. I had to graduate fast. I graduated with a degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics last 2018.

This is my Dad, he was the epitome of success whom I wanted to learn from.. I wish he was still here

As a fresh grad, the first job I took was that of being a Financial Advisor for one of the biggest Insurance Providers in the world. I did pretty much well on that front for the first year, earning awards and being recognized at a national level. But without my Dad to share these victories or seek guidance from, it eventually felt empty, and by my second year I basically gave up on it.

This is the broadsheet article from The Philippine Star where I was featured..

With the announcement of my wife's pregnancy, it gave me a push to look for a job and some stable income. Since being an insurance agent/financial planner doesn't count as employment experience in the eyes of hiring managers, I couldn't land the higher paying jobs. So I took a chance on entry level jobs that can help me build a career and get me a foot eventually to those doors that previously closed on me. Starting from a good background, it was a slingshot out of the gates when I started, I became a top performer in the first month, became a candidate for Subject Matter Expert roles, all on my first year. Things are looking good for this one but a few months later, the pandemic hit and that progress slowed down significantly. With the performance I've been doing, I would've just grown with the company if ever I get promoted just enough. But alas, with the work from home setup, I couldn't be noticed. To them I'm just a number, growth slowed down and my motivation with it. As I'm starting to use up my savings for day to day living, I'm feeling the burn of the income not being enough to support my family.

I went back to cryptocurrencies as a side hustle, something I just dabbled on in 2018 and gave me significant gains. Although I may have been lucky a couple of times, I have also been met with significant losses on it. With nowhere else to go at that point, me and my wife became students of the market, we invested in ourselves moving forward, and from August of 2020 up to now this is basically what were doing. We started to love every moment of it, there were ups and downs along the way, but this just made us even more motivated. I finally have a way to work with my wife. Although, just resorting to trading and investing cryptos may not be enough, especially in a bearish market like the one we had last May 2021. So we also have been trying the different ways to earn from the space, like from staking tokens, to streaming my game sessions or our market charting sessions, to playing new and earning play-to-earn crypto NFT games, and to now making a blog here in HIVE. Basically, we're now starting to explore all that crypto and decentralization has to offer.

And just like that I have found a new motivation, a new peak to climb. I'm still unsure of the path, but that's part of the process. In a span of four years, I've gone through almost the same number of different plateaus in my life, and I believe I'll be seeing a few more in the future. To be honest, I think I might not even have absorbed all the major life lessons that should be learned leading up to this point. But here's my take on coping with this phase in life, as Walt Disney famously said:

We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

Because that's the only way we'll get to see that new peak to climb, or door to open, or path to take. And in the spirit of moving forward I'm now exploring another frustration in my life which was riding a motorcycle and perhaps making content from it but that's a story for another time..

A Few Closing Words

I know this has been a downer of a topic, but I feel this would be the best way to start the battered husband series. Because, for some this is a bitter pill they'd have to swallow each and every day. But maybe for some of us as well, this shouldn't even have us breaking a sweat. Wherever you are in those two camps, please share with me your thoughts on this down in the comments. I want to know if you have ever gone through this feeling of uncertainty and how did you cope with it? It not only helps me see different perspectives and solutions that I can try in the future, it might also help out our fellow Hivers that are experiencing the same.

If you liked reading my blog and want to see more.. let me know by upvoting and following me here on Hive. Doing this tells me that I am doing right on this platform and inspires me to do more blogs like this in the future. Don't worry, I promise that the next one will be more light-hearted.

This has been your Papable PapaBear, Marcusen..

See you on my next Blog.