My Phone Shut Off. So Did My Coping Mechanism.

I was on my way home, daydreaming as usual when suddenly the noise from my AirPods disappeared. From hard hitting laser sounds to the bus’s engine, it took a quarter of a second for me to realize, my phone died. And of course, the day I needed my power bank the most, I forgot it at home.  I was still left with around 20 minutes of commute. For a chronically online person like me, that is equivalent to jail time.  And there I was, tapping my feet in frustration, and praying I reached home asap.  

With my phone not distracting me, I found myself staring outside the window again. This time it wasn't some whimsical wandering thoughts, but a full-blown identity crisis, “What am I going to do after I graduate? Will I even get a job? What if I fail terribly at it? What if I end up wasting my summer and not do anything productive? Everyone else is so ahead!!” 

And before I knew it, I was home. So of course, I tossed the thoughts aside and went back to doing my chores and distracting myself. A few hours later, I was on FaceTime with my friend, and he chuckled, “Bro, we’re literally graduating next year. What if we don’t end up getting jobs lol?”. I exclaimed, “OMG I WAS THINKING THE SAME TODAY!”.  

That's when I realized, this is universal. But why is it hitting so much harder in summer? 

Why are we still stuck in this anxiety when all we’re supposed to do is the opposite? 

Syllabus Diagnosis 

Here’s what I’ve understood. During the school year, I never have to decide what to do with my time. It's decided for me. This hour's for lecture, this one's for the practice questions I'm avoiding, this one's for the club work, this one’s for the group project (you know, the one where somehow, it's always the same person doing the slides). My day is basically decided before I even wake up. It’s a loop of 24x7, 8 months of the school year.  

Which is, not exactly "freedom." But also, kind of a relief?  

You can't spiral about a decision you were never given in the first place. 

My hypothesis: summer numbs down the distractions so now I'm just left with free time and these thoughts that I'm trying to avoid. Every hour is unassigned. No syllabus telling me what it's "for." And turns out an empty hour doesn't feel relaxing; it feels like a decision standing there staring at me. Now loop it for  every day, for three months. That's not a break. That's just an insane mountain of unmade decisions, too much for my teeny-tiny brain. 

Practical Interpretation 

So, the "what am I doing with my life" thing? I don't even think that's really about the future. I think it's my brain being handed a hundred tiny choices with zero instructions. So this is what ends up happening subconsciously, "okay well I don't know how to say 'I have no idea what this hour is for' so I'm just going to overthink and spiral instead because it's easier than actually making that decision." 

Which, honestly, explains the bus thing embarrassingly well. My phone dying wasn't what caused the spiral. It just removed the last thing that was standing between me and the question. 

Overthinking but make it Econ 

If I want to get real econ-major about it: this is basically scarcity, just applied to my whole identity instead of, like, avocados. Scarcity is basically when something is limited. As a result, limited things are easier to deal with because you don't have infinite options to weigh.  

During the school year, my time is scarce, every hour's already claimed, so I never have to sit there deciding what it's worth. Summer just... removes the limit. Time stops being scarce and starts being unlimited and turns out unlimited isn't relief; it's just every hour demanding its own decision, with no default option to fall back on. My brain, after eight months of never having to choose, just doesn't know what to do with that much freedom. All my econ baddies reading this, y'all already know what I'm talking about. 

Maybe The Question Isn't The Problem 

And every time, I’m left with those questions hanging by a thread in my brain. And, they remain unanswered. Because the truth is, I don't know what I’m going to do with my life after 5 years. I have goals, yes, but I don't have a set schedule because everything ultimately, is a probability, and nobody really knows the future 100%.  

But maybe, the objective isn't to out-answer that question.  

It wants airtime. Eight months of getting cut off by lectures and deadlines, and finally, now it gets the floor. The question stays open and I think that's allowed. 

Also, it was never really the thought itself that got me all nervous and anxious. "What am I doing with my life?" is a boring sentence on its own. I could write it on a whiteboard and the words alone would mean nothing. It's the feeling that shows up with it: tight, buzzy, can't-sit-still, the one that ruins the bus ride. 

So What’s The Solution? 

Long story short, here's what’s been helping me so far.  

Walking. Or some kind of low-effort movement. No destination, no app tracking pace or distance or calories or whatever else Apple Health wants to guilt me about today. The second I turn it into a workout, it becomes one more thing I can be bad at, and I do not have the bandwidth to fail at cardio and my entire future in the same week. 

Talking about it with my FaceTime friend. Not to fix anything — genuinely, neither of us has a job, nothing got resolved, we're just overthinking this together now instead of separately. But saying the thought out loud apparently makes it about 40% quieter. I don't have a source for that statistic. I made it up. But it remains true. 

And this one's going to sound stupid: I do the dishes. Or laundry. Something with an actual start and an actual finish, because my brain has spent the last eight months convinced that nothing I do matters unless it's building toward a career, a grade, a "future”, or anything that involves LinkedIn larping. So, I try and do something small and finishable, just to prove I still can. Congrats to me, I guess, for successfully folding a towel. 

None of these answer the question. I want to be clear about that, because if you're reading this, hoping for the part where I tell you the trick that makes "what am I doing with my life" go away, it's not coming. The point was never to solve it. The point was just to stop treating the volume as an emergency. 

If you're also 20-something and your brain has recently held you hostage on public transit: you're not behind. You're not the only one whose brain does this. I promise half of your friends are having the same 11pm meltdown, maybe just more quietly. 

I still don't have a plan. I still don't know what September looks like, let alone graduation. But maybe, the bus ride without my phone doesn't have to feel like jail time anymore. Perhaps, my thoughts are just information, something I’m allowed to have. Loud, annoying, occasionally at the worst possible moment but also not evidence that I'm failing at being twenty.