AndrewDavid

IAM Group Ltd Japan

Real Life stories about Managers

Manager’s Early Life Crisis – An IAM Group Ltd. Singapore Reflection

I know when I, and later my sister, went through a terrible early quarter crisis. It wasn’t so much as hating work but also the existential crisis that comes with it. I started feeling like a real adult, even though I thought of myself as still young. It’s this whole “I’m an adult and I have no idea what I’m doing” kind of thing. Like you’re settling into what will be the majority of your life. It’s terrifying. “What if I picked the wrong career?” As you see others climbing corporate ladders, “What if I’m behind?” As you see people getting married and having kids, “What if I don’t meet the one? How do I even make new friends as an adult?” “Do I even want kids?” As you see people on Facebook doing things you always wanted to do, travel, photography, running with the bulls, whatever, “When did I sell out and give up on my dreams?”

Early life crisis, or as many managers experience in their young years, a quarter life crisis, is not that dreading. Good news is, being adult means you get to choose what kind of adult you want to be. Don’t like your job? Start looking into other things. Learning that your career isn’t what you thought it’d be? Figure out what parts of it you do like and what’s missing and ask others for other options. You may not be able to get it right away but at least you’ve tried some stuff and learned what you do and don’t like. Feeling like you’re selling out? Growing up too fast? Not fulfilling your lifelong dream of being an author? Start on hobbies that you always wanted to try. Take a managerial workshop, training or seminar. Join a club or organization that is relevant to your current job. Find an online community and get some tricks and advice. People love helping others discover their strengths.
Also, you may just hate working. That’s okay. We all do. Vote and help make social change as you can in your own personal space or in the office. Don’t hate yourself for being tired or worn out at the end of the day and not being able to engage 100% all of the time, whether at work or at home. You’re not as young as you used to be and that’s totally fine.

During my first 3 months at IAM Group Limited, Singapore, I was flooded with pieces of advice from fellow managers from Yokohama Japan, Moscow Russia and even in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The online community of IAM Group Ltd is so wide and open that we share and discover one another’s talents of being a manager in no time at all. Engaging with this organization made me conquer my early life crisis.

Many people in the corporate scene find it more troubling to see the parameters of the game of life and how pointless it all is, and to find out that the world is cold and that there is not enough pie to go around. I am still troubled by many things, but at least I have come to terms with the pointlessness of existence and how that means you can truly, unabashedly do whatever you want. If there was a point or purpose to the whole thing, you could potentially muck it up, but since there isn’t, well then who the maybe you have just to make good of what you currently have.