The Next Great Impasse

One of the real fucked up things about being an adult is how all those feelings you had at sixteen—not knowing what you’re doing with your life etc.—never really leave you.

Those feelings might temporarily soften and quiet down but you’ll constantly bump into that not-knowing-ness over and over again. Even though when you overcome that big hurdle like a career change, you’ll veer off in some other direction with your life, believing that you’ve figured it all out now. Thank god, you reckon, you’re on track from here on out. No more big life decisions ever again! The path has been laid! The mold has been cast! Never again will you fear that life must be reset, redesigned from scratch.

But it only lasts a moment or two; the Next Great Impasse is always just as big and as terrifying as the last one.

The only solace you can get is knowing that you dealt with the Last Great Impasse. You hit that terrifying career change or broke off that fucked up relationship—your life veering off into another place and direction and velocity altogether—but you came out the other end okay.