I’ve been thinking lately about whether it’s actually true that, in young adulthood, even people who see themselves as very free-thinking are mostly operating inside mental frameworks they picked up without really noticing. Family, friends, mentors, role models—those influences seem to shape how we see the world way more than we like to admit, especially early on. Perhaps no one actually build a sense of self or a worldview from scratch.
And even when people do change, it usually happens slowly. What’s “free” in “free-thinking” often isn’t freedom from a worldview, but freedom to think within one. At least in my experience, that seems to hold pretty strongly until the mid-twenties.
In the early to mid-20s, there’s a lot of openness, but it often looks less like self-authorship and more like trying things on. People experiment with identities, beliefs, lifestyles—but most of it feels like sampling what’s already out there rather than really carving something out through reflection alone. That’s why it seems to me that more deliberate identity formation tends to peak later.
It’s usually in the mid-to-late 20s that worldviews start getting reinforced, chosen, or changed more consciously. Not that they suddenly become totally original—of course they’re still influenced by other people and ideas—but the big difference is intention. There’s more of a real answer to why someone believes or lives the way they do, instead of just “this sounded interesting” or “I’m seeing if this fits.” It’s less trial-and-error and more reasoned self decision.
When it comes to that late-20s shift, I think environment plays a huge role. Isolation, for example, can either help or hurt depending on the person. If someone is naturally reflective and patient, isolation can give them the quiet space to really rethink things. But if someone is more spontaneous, reactive, or easily frustrated, isolation might actually stall growth. For them, being in a healthy social environment—or even going to therapy—might be a much better way for change to happen, assuming they’re interested in changing at all.
What’s interesting is that these patterns themselves seem pretty universal, almost like teenage behavior. The overall process looks similar across people; what changes is how much realignment is needed. Someone who grew up in a supportive, emotionally healthy household and ended up on a life path that still works for them might barely experience this phase—they’re already aligned. Someone who grew up in a less supportive environment, or who got pushed down a path that didn’t really fit, might need a much more dramatic reset. Most people probably fall somewhere in between.
These don’t feel like random coincidences or just personal anecdotes—I've also read about other people's experiences online and have also read in Wikipedia that 70 percent of people in their 30s remember of some sort of quarter life crisis in their twenties . These appear to suggest real patterns in human nature. And that’s probably what justifies psychology as a science—even if it’s a statistical one rather than something that predicts individuals perfectly. Maybe some of this even lines up with changes in brain development, the way teenage psychology lines up with shifts in brain chemistry and physiology. I don’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
And even when people do change, it usually happens slowly. What’s “free” in “free-thinking” often isn’t freedom from a worldview, but freedom to think within one. At least in my experience, that seems to hold pretty strongly until the mid-twenties.
In the early to mid-20s, there’s a lot of openness, but it often looks less like self-authorship and more like trying things on. People experiment with identities, beliefs, lifestyles—but most of it feels like sampling what’s already out there rather than really carving something out through reflection alone. That’s why it seems to me that more deliberate identity formation tends to peak later.
It’s usually in the mid-to-late 20s that worldviews start getting reinforced, chosen, or changed more consciously. Not that they suddenly become totally original—of course they’re still influenced by other people and ideas—but the big difference is intention. There’s more of a real answer to why someone believes or lives the way they do, instead of just “this sounded interesting” or “I’m seeing if this fits.” It’s less trial-and-error and more reasoned self decision.
When it comes to that late-20s shift, I think environment plays a huge role. Isolation, for example, can either help or hurt depending on the person. If someone is naturally reflective and patient, isolation can give them the quiet space to really rethink things. But if someone is more spontaneous, reactive, or easily frustrated, isolation might actually stall growth. For them, being in a healthy social environment—or even going to therapy—might be a much better way for change to happen, assuming they’re interested in changing at all.
What’s interesting is that these patterns themselves seem pretty universal, almost like teenage behavior. The overall process looks similar across people; what changes is how much realignment is needed. Someone who grew up in a supportive, emotionally healthy household and ended up on a life path that still works for them might barely experience this phase—they’re already aligned. Someone who grew up in a less supportive environment, or who got pushed down a path that didn’t really fit, might need a much more dramatic reset. Most people probably fall somewhere in between.
These don’t feel like random coincidences or just personal anecdotes—I've also read about other people's experiences online and have also read in Wikipedia that 70 percent of people in their 30s remember of some sort of quarter life crisis in their twenties . These appear to suggest real patterns in human nature. And that’s probably what justifies psychology as a science—even if it’s a statistical one rather than something that predicts individuals perfectly. Maybe some of this even lines up with changes in brain development, the way teenage psychology lines up with shifts in brain chemistry and physiology. I don’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me.