So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way

Happy quarter-life crisis to those who celebrate!!!

Oct 03, 2023

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Recently, it has started to feel like all of my friends and I are having some version of a quarter-life crisis. Perhaps it’s because we’re all pretty much between the ages of 23 and 28—too young for our Saturn returns, too old to go viral on TikTok—and we lost very formative years to the pandemic. Or, as Satya Doyle Byock argues in her book Quarterlife, maybe this is just what naturally happens at this age.1

In any case, I wanted to talk about this bizarre phase of life with someone who I know has these same existential thoughts and feelings but who is also clearly doing something right.

We all have those friends who, to the outsider’s eye, really seem to have their shit figured out: they’re put together, stylish, work a great job, have an active social life, and are all around enviable. But have you ever asked them what it’s like to be them? The amount of work that went into constructing a life that appears to be entirely in alignment with who they are; what sacrifices they’ve made; if they’re happy?

I did!!! This week, I talked with the gorgeous Hannah Stein about her life up until now, what happened when she started living in accordance with her “HELL YES!” emotions, and how we can all build lives that feel comfortable for us.

Hi, I’m Hannah (she/her)! I’m a marketing professional in Manhattan. I'm from the Bay Area, graduated from Cal Poly SLO with my BS in Business with a marketing concentration and a minor in theatre because I wasn’t THAT kind of business major. I moved to NYC the summer after graduating with a suitcase and a dream (and my first panic attack).
I currently work as a Senior Lifecycle and Marketing Manager and live on the Upper ~~Best~~ West Side with suitcases in storage, lots of dreams, and less frequent panic.

Young! Scrappy! Hungry!

If you had told me fifteen years ago what my life looks like today, I would have been devastated to hear that my debut album, Cowgirl Hearts, had not gone double platinum.2 14-year-old me also wouldn’t have been too happy to learn I was not an accomplished triple threat slash interior designer.

Yet, as I look around my life as it is right now, everything oddly makes sense. Everything is not where I’d like it to be, don’t get me wrong, but the decisions I’ve made and the places they’ve all brought me to are more understandable than my dream of winning at the CMAs ever was.

With a segue like this, no one will be shocked to find that I kicked things off by asking Hannah:

Emily: What did you envision your life would look like growing up?
Hannah: From an early age, I was determined to chart my own path. In my childhood imagination, I saw myself pursuing various career paths, from veterinarian to Disney Channel star. But it was my increasing involvement in community theater that ignited my passion for the stage. The path to Broadway stardom (hello Rachel Berry) became the true dream. I spent seven years of my childhood participating in at least three musicals annually—that's a substantial amount of time to visualize a life as a performer!
When I hit high school, I needed a job. With dogs as another one of my passions (being a handler in Obedience competitions is another story), I began working at a local holistic pet store. While I enjoyed the job, I worked most weekends and couldn't help but yearn for the idea of weekends off. Watching couples and their dogs stroll in on a Saturday morning, I often would daydream about their lives and a more traditional 9-5 schedule. Even still, I seriously contemplated pursuing a career in performing arts, even though it's known for its inconsistency. As I gazed at the NYC skyline artwork hanging in my high school bedroom, I wondered how I could ever make that dream a reality.
With these two lives and goals in mind, I started searching for universities with strong theater and business programs. My parents instilled in me the importance of stability, so the business route with my leadership experience seemed to make sense. I applied and was accepted to schools outside of California but I wasn't ready to venture so far from home, so I decided to attend Cal Poly.
Emily: In what notable ways is your life now either similar or different?
Hannah: I made it to New York! I answered the call to adventure and embraced the city. Do I watch a ton of theater? Absolutely! Do I still perform? Not anymore, but I’m calling it a sabbatical. Do I work on weekends? Nope! But have I explored various paths? Definitely. You can't have it all, as we learned from Everything Everywhere All At Once.
In some ways, my life is similar: I'm still driven and explore various passions, from girlbossing my way to be a CEO to considering becoming a yoga instructor. On the artistic front, I thought performing would play a bigger role in my life. I might not be in 3-4 shows a year, but I do attend 3-4 shows a month. Nurturing my creative side has become more challenging post-college and high school, and I struggle finding ways to keep those creative muscles flexed.

Young adulthood (particularly one spent on social media) often feels like a game of “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.” And, much like the Taylor Swift song of the same name, it can be fairly traumatizing. You’re at a point where no change is really too big or out of reach, but everything has the tendency to feel so definitive and final—and often wrong. It’s so natural to do this—how many times have you heard that the grass is always greener on the other side?—but the connotations are always bleak. Instead, I wanted to flip the script a little and give the Sliding Doors of it all a more positive spin.

I asked Hannah:

Emily: How do you think your life today would look if you had not moved to New York or not made certain decisions that you did?
Hannah: Moving across the country by myself to a place I had never been before forced me to be independent, strong, and self-reliant. It was a pivotal decision that shaped the course of my life, and I know I would have resented myself for not taking the leap.
On the day I left my parents' home for the airport, I experienced a full-on breakdown, as I alluded to in my intro. I even recorded a video message to my future self, essentially saying, "You HAVE to do this." And I did! This experience has proven to be one of the most valuable and transformative in my life. It compelled me to explore, discover, and grow in ways I couldn't have imagined otherwise.
One significant difference is in my comfort with my queerness. Throughout college, I felt the need to present myself in a way that aligned with what I thought was expected, which was predominantly straight (and I think it worked, depending who you ask). Specifically, my understanding of bisexuality and the associated connotations would have evolved differently.
Living in New York has allowed me to embrace the complexity of my sexuality, residing comfortably in a more nuanced, gray area. While I had already come out in high school, the empowering LGBTQ+ community in NYC has played a pivotal role in nurturing my authentic self-expression.
I believe that no matter what choices I made, I would have found a way to land on my feet and make the best of it. Maybe I wouldn't be single now if I had chosen a different path. Comparing my NYC friends to my friends from home who are of similar ages, I notice significant differences in our life stages. Both paths are valid, but they lead to quite distinct places. I imagine I would have ended up in a similar camp as my friends from home.
And, if I hadn't moved, I might already have a dog by now.

Hannah is a performer and that fact is apparent within the first ten minutes of meeting her. As she previously shared, she had dreams of pursuing theatre professionally and put in so much time and effort to achieve it but ultimately decided to take a path with more—let’s say—job security like countless other creatives before her.

I wanted to know if the would’ves and could’ves had any place in that choice and asked:

Emily: What did it or does it feel like to realize you no longer wanted something you had worked towards for so long?
Hannah: Realizing that I no longer wanted the theatre job I had worked so hard for was a complex mix of emotions. It was a shift from a career path that had once been a passionate pursuit to something entirely different—transitioning from theatre to a corporate setting.
At first, I felt a sense of fear and was, admittedly, a little disappointed in myself. It was a daunting decision to let go of something I had invested so much time and energy into. The process of realizing I wanted a change was not an overnight revelation. My priorities had evolved over time, and I began to value financial stability and the ability to support myself while pursuing my dreams.
After working in theatre for nearly two years, I made the decision to switch to a new industry, and it turned out to be a door opener. The opportunities that unfolded were greater, and the resilience I had cultivated in the theatre world of being "young, scrappy, and hungry” (come on—I had to have a Hamilton reference somewhere) translated well into my new role.
This experience taught me that it's entirely acceptable for priorities to shift. What I want today may not be what I wanted yesterday, and likely won’t be what I want in the future. Ultimately, my journey from theatre to corporate life taught me the importance of adapting to change and embracing opportunities that align more closely with my current values and aspirations.

As per usual, Hannah’s head is screwed on just right. However, I wanted to dig deeper into the role external voices and pressures play in how we build and shape our lives.

Please Don’t Judge My Life Decisions Based on My Instagram Presence…Judge Them Based on My Credit Card Statements

I want to call back a comment I made in the intro because I’ve been thinking a lot about Katy Schneider’s piece in The Cut last month titled, “The Pandemic Skip.” In it, she talks with a number of family members and colleagues about the phenomenon of feeling like the age we were when we entered the pandemic even though we consciously know three years have passed.

In the second to last paragraph, Schneider writes

We’ll never know if any of this was the pandemic, or if we’re just narcissistic New York City Peter Pans or anxious maladaptives. Maybe those 34-year-olds would have been worried about whether to have children at 34, pandemic or no pandemic. I asked my friend, the one who had recently turned 60, what she thought. She said that in her experience, moving from one decade to another, from one phase of life to the next, was consistently hard. But, she suspects, it takes a lot of living alongside other people—watching…all the millions of other choices they made in the service of forward movement—to look properly at yourself and realize you’re not just the same age as you were before.

Whether we realize it or not—or, rather, we want to admit it to ourselves or not—so much of how we live our lives has to do with how other people live theirs. By that I mean both something as innocuous and well-meaning as choosing to live in one location because it’s closer to our families, and something as dramatic and toxic as settling for a partner you don’t even really like because you feel like you have to hit certain milestones at specific ages.

There are so many external pressures that determine how we live our lives—pandemics especially—and so many opinions and voices we have to sift through as we make it through each day. Thinking of all of this, I asked Hannah:

Emily: Do you feel any external pressure to live your life a certain way and/or make certain decisions? If so, how do you hold those judgments along with what you actually want? Which wins out in the end, if either?
Hannah: I’m an Aquarius. Does that count as an answer?3
In all seriousness, absolutely, yes, I do feel external pressures in various aspects of my life. I'm fortunate that the people whose opinions truly matter to me are supportive of the decisions I make. I come from a lovingly opinionated family (or just a Jewish family), and everyone has their own thoughts and motives. What I want to do with my life will always win, excluding when it negatively impacts others, of course.
We can expand that scope to more than people I surround myself with and look at society in general. There are steps, formulas, and a role for women to fill. Still, even within these pressures, my desires and ambitions come first. It’s honestly hard to say anything else because I’m pretty extreme on this confidence.
While I have plenty of insecurities, knowing what I want and following it has never been a big challenge for me. My high school quote was, “If you know what you want then you go and you find it and you get it” by Sondheim.

One thing I have always admired about Hannah is how intentional she is, a trait that has been abundantly evident in her answers so far. The more of an adult I become (horrifying), the more I strive for intentionality in my words and actions. I tried to find a way to ask Hannah about how this behavior fits into what we’ve been discussing and settled on asking:

Emily: What have you done to start building a life that feels right for you?
Hannah: Building a life that feels truly right for me is about figuring out my key values and making decisions that reflect that. On my first day of sorority recruitment in college (ew, I know), they tell you to decide what you value and lean into the sorority that also has that value. For me, that’s relationships. Nurturing and cherishing the connections I have with loved ones—both born and chosen—is foundational to a life that aligns with my values and brings me joy.
This may sound weird, but I’ve always used the feeling of jealousy as a signal to what I want. I wouldn’t be jealous of someone who had things I don’t want. Instead of associating envy with negativity and trying to stop myself, I let it clue me in to what I want. Then ask, why do I want it?
Once those two are aligned, I have pretty good faith the universe (or whatever you believe in!) and my own decisive action will help figure out when and how it will happen.
Emily: Follow up: what would your advice be for those who want to do the same?
Hannah: Start by identifying your core values and what truly matters to you. This will provide clarity and help you make conscious decisions that align with your beliefs and desires. It should minimize the internal conflict and uncertainty that can arise from decision making.
Lean into the "hell yes" moments in life. When an opportunity or decision makes you feel genuinely excited and aligned, it's a sign that you're on the right path. Trust your instincts and lean into these moments. They often lead to fulfilling experiences and choices.

I like Hannah’s advice on how to tune out some of the external noise around living, laughing, and loving, but I think there’s a second step we often neglect to mention: we are just as much participants in other people’s external pressures as they are in ours. Yes, it is important to live your truth, others be damned, but I think it’s also key to not become a negative presence to others while they do the same.

I asked Hannah exactly that:

Emily: How do we become less judgmental of other people trying to figure out what’s right in their lives?
Hannah: It’s so hard! One of my biggest concerns about the idea of moving back to California is that people will say, “Aww, Hannah couldn’t make it in New York.” The fear of judgment, like the idea of moving back to California, can weigh on us. But it's crucial to remember that each person is on their unique journey, and we can't base our choices on others' opinions.
To be less judgmental, I think it helps to focus on your own life, which doesn’t have to be selfish. Each of us is on a unique journey, and we cannot base our actions or decisions on the perceptions or expectations of others. Everyone around us is also carving out their distinct and fulfilling lives. The only voice that truly matters is our own.
While I'm someone who often seeks counsel and advice from others, be it about fashion choices (thanks Emily) or financial matters (thanks Dad), genuinely listening to my own inner voice—that amalgamation of gut feelings, heart desires, and logical reasoning—can be incredibly challenging.
When we immerse ourselves in our own journeys, though, we naturally become more empathetic and understanding toward others who are navigating their own unique paths. It allows us to appreciate the diverse ways in which people choose to live, learn, and grow.

Girlfriend, You Are So On

I wanted to lean more into these concepts of intuition and hell yes-ing because I think, coupled with empathy and general human kindness, they are the things we need to root ourselves in if we want to lead lives that feel Goldilocks-right for us.

In our conversation, Hannah mentioned how she strives to live in “radical alignment” with herself. Figuring that sounded so powerful that must be the solution to all of our anxieties and fears about simply existing, I asked:

Emily: How can we all start to live in radical alignment with ourselves?
Hannah: Living in radical alignment with ourselves, for me, starts with this: if a decision isn't a resounding "HELL YES," it's essentially a "HELL NO." This mantra is my compass that drives me toward choices that genuinely resonate with my values and desires. While not every decision might evoke the same level of enthusiasm, nothing has been more of a “hell yes” for me than taking my first job offer in NYC.
Reflecting on my own experiences, I've noticed that when I've said yes to things that didn't feel aligned with my true self, I often ended up with regrets—like ordering that second (or even third) vodka soda when you know it's not what you truly wanted. Learning to recognize and honor our authentic desires in every decision is crucial to achieving radical alignment. I often surprise myself with what I say no to!

Ultimately, if I’m taking the right messages away from Hannah’s sage advice, the key to navigating these weird fucking years is managing our expectations, realities, and dreams simultaneously. That sounds unendingly daunting, but also a little bit like a game: How Can I Do Life Best Today?

Still, balance and stability are not easily won feats—if they were, I would be far better at barre than I am right now. But just because they’re finicky goals doesn’t mean we should ever stop aiming for them. Combining everything we’ve covered here today with this notion front and center of mind, I wanted to know:

Emily: For you, what is the relationship between managing external pressures and judgments about your life choices and seeking external validation?
Hannah: This is my life, and ultimately, I'm the one who must live with my choices. While external pressures and judgments may weigh on me at times, I recognize the importance of staying true to my path.
I often joke that I'm like Tinkerbell, needing applause to live. I thrive on verbal affirmations, and that's a part of who I am. The people who love and support me understand this aspect of my personality and communicate their affection through words of affirmation love language.
However, no matter how many positive affirmations I receive from others, I understand that the most crucial validation must come from within. It's essential for me to believe in and validate my own choices, regardless of external opinions. While external validation can be encouraging and uplifting, it's secondary to the validation I give myself.

And finally, I had to ask Miss Hannah:

Emily: Do you have a plan for your future? If so, what can you share with us about it?
Hannah: This question is so timely! Over the past year, there have been some exciting and positive milestones within my family, reaffirming my key value of relationships in life. As I look ahead, my priority will always be my connections with loved ones. Therefore, I'm increasingly mindful of how my actions, including decisions about where I live and what I do, align with this priority.
While I may not have a detailed plan mapped out just yet, I'm making decisions that reflect my values and desires, and not the outside influence. Whatever I decide to do, it will be my choice.

Thank you so much to Hannah for being so vulnerable and comforting while also being true to herself—I can attest that these answers sound exactly like talking to her at a girls’ dinner or a wine night!!!