Hello and welcome to Kelly in Crisis! The name of this blog is my name, Kelly, with a fun reference to having an existential crisis. I’ve been in the midst of an existential crisis for the past year and a half, beginning when I graduated from my Master’s degree and started my first full time job. 

While I imagined the world of work in a very abstract way, I was not prepared for the slog of spending 9-5 sitting in an office. I had expected that choosing to work for a non-profit organization rather than a for-profit corporation would give me a feeling of purpose and though it’s cliche, I did expect to be making some sort of difference. However, the work was extremely unfulfilling, tedious, and boring. In addition, the office featured an open office plan in which I felt constantly surveilled– even though my managers were laid back– and increasingly overstimulated with my colleagues’ conversations and zoom calls. Due to these factors, I eventually opted to work from home the vast majority of the time. 

At the same time, I had just moved back to the US after having lived abroad for two years and was living in a townhouse with two strangers as roommates. Not only were my two roommates strangers, there was also nearly instant drama between the two girls leading to intense animosity and a series of confrontations that led to one of the two girls moving out of the townhouse within the month. 

Suffice it to say, my life after graduate school was nothing like I had ever imagined it. I felt like I was wasting my life in a tedious job which required very little actual thinking, knowledge, or expertise and I also had very few friends in the city I was living in. However, both of these factors also meant that I had more unscheduled freetime than I had in any other point of my life.

For the first time in years, I had the time to read whatever I wanted– not tied to any particular class syllabus. At first, I devoured all the novels I could– one week even reading four books between the hours of 9-5 (yes, my job really required that little of me). But eventually, as the novelty of free time wore off, I began to feel like I was squandering my life and became determined to find purpose and meaning any way possible. I started reading books such as Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, I learned about Karl Marx’s theory of the alienation of labor, and through Michel Foucault’s conception of the Panopticon I understood why I felt so exposed and on-edge at the office.

This blog will be a space in which I will explore the philosophical, psychological, economic, anthropological and political ideas that have helped me to make sense of the world in my search for a purposeful life that continues even today. Though I have gotten a new job since then, it’s still not very meaningful and definitely not what I want to do with my life long term. So, what do I want to do with my life long term? Is a meaningful job even necessary for a meaningful life? Well, I’m still figuring these things out and more.

I didn’t create this blog because I feel like I have all the answers. Instead this blog will explore new ideas in easy-to-read and understand language and attempt to explain how these ideas could apply to our own lives. It is also for you, reader, to help me by sharing your thoughts and ideas on “the good life” and how to improve oneself. It is my hope that, together, we can ask the right questions and get closer to finding the answers.

I’ll aim to publish a new blog post weekly but in the meantime here are a few books, documentaries, and podcasts I’ve been enjoying. Many of these resources are very beginner friendly! Still, keep in mind that these resources present arguments. I’m recommending these sources because I’ve found them to be useful starting points. However, I do not necessarily agree with each argument made by the authors or podcast presenters. I recommend starting with The Good Life Method because it provides a useful introduction that presents various philosophical arguments and shows how we can think critically about them.

Books:

The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning by Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko

Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

Ethics in the real world : 82 brief essays on things that matter by Peter Singer

How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment by Skye C. Cleary

Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Capital and Ideology by Thomas Picketty

Bullshit Jobs by David Graber

Debt by David Graeber

All About Love by bell hooks

Documentaries:

Century of the Self by Adam Curtis (It is on youtube for free)

Podcasts:

The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

Overthink with Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

How to Build a Happy Life/ How to Keep Time from the Atlantic

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson