A blank stare crossed my face when I met with my company’s financial advisor. My mind was paralyzed. At 22, I was updating my 401(k) investments and planning out the next 40 years of my life.

My mind drifted into the realm of continuous questions. “Am I really going to be in this office for the next 40 years?” “What will I look like?” “Will I have children?” “What exactly is a mutual fund, anyway?”

It seems I’ve always had a plan for life. After college, I quickly transitioned into adulthood.

ERVIN

Soon after starting my dream job as an event planner, I was wearing dress suits daily and writing checks for mortgage payments. On the outside, it appeared as if I had accomplished most of my life milestones. However, on the inside, I constantly asked myself, “What if?”

I was living in fear that I was missing out on something by growing up too fast.

I became consumed with doing everything I should be doing. I found myself unfulfilled. Months before my 25th birthday I realized I was having a quarter-life crisis.

Christine Hassler, author of “20 Something, 20 Everything: A Quarter-life Woman’s Guide to Balance and Direction,” coined the term “expectation hangover,” which occurs when we hold a certain expectation but things don’t turn out like we thought they should, and then we feel disappointed.

My head was pounding from an expectation hangover, but it didn’t go away after one day. In the beginning, my job seemed perfect. However, after three years of dealing with demands from top management and learning organizational politics, I became exhausted. I was overworked and underpaid.

Generation Y, those born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, have continually been told, “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up.” This idea of endless opportunities presents an enormous amount of stress and anxiety to “have it all.”

Living the American Dream complete with a career, house and family appears to be more attainable than ever. But whose goals are those anyway? Why do we feel the pressure to live up to society’s standards? What about what I want?

Jessie Rosen, author of the blog “20-Nothings,” said a quarter-life crisis is a freak-out that occurs at a point in our mid-20s when we take stock of the trajectory we’re on and ask, “Is this who I want to be? What if it isn’t? What do I do?”

Rosen said, “We are aware that the decisions made in our 20s lay the foundation of our life and we want to take time getting there, which makes us more driven by personal interests.”

A recent New York Times article by Robin Marantz Henig entitled, “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” posed the question, “Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?” Henig says young people today are forestalling the beginning of adulthood.

Henig’s article cites research by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University, which outlines the 20s as a distinct life stage called “emerging adulthood.” Arnett says this life stage occurs between the ages of 18-25 and is about “identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and the opposite of what is/was traditional adulthood.”

I have come to the conclusion that a quarter-life crisis usually involves a person trying to define themselves in society through life ambitions. After spending years trying to make sure I always had the right answer when people judgingly asked, “So, what do you do?” I’ve decided to pursue my own interests.

My quarter-life crisis led me back to graduate school to continue my education in the field of public relations. My struggles for fulfillment in my early 20s have taught me that taking time to figure out what you really want is OK.

To those 20-somethings having a quarter-life crisis — enjoy the journey.

Your early 20s are a learning experience about the real world and life in general. Don’t spend all of your time planning for the future or comparing your life to the lives of others. It will only create expectation hangovers.

Yes, it is important to have goals, but make sure you are accomplishing your own goals — not milestones your parents, peers or society have outlined.

Now at 27, I’m thrilled to have a slowly growing 401(k) established, but I’m also glad I took a detour on my journey to embrace the uncertainty of being a 20-something.

— Graham Ervin is a graduate student from Belton, S.C. studying public relations