Young people are increasingly experiencing a “quarter-life crisis” filled with anxiety, depression, anguish and disorientation. Much like reaching your 40s and experiencing a midlife crisis, quarterlife can bring its own set of challenges like forging your own sense of self and separating from your parents or caregivers, therapist Satya Doyle Byock tells the New York Times.

Deviating from the script: Previous generations followed a pattern of sorts with young people graduating from college, marrying, and raising a family. In today’s world, young people tend to experience “extended adolescence” due to rising costs, crushing debt, a climate crisis, and a prolonged multiyear pandemic, which have come together to make them unable to plan long term. To navigate a “quarter-life crisis,” psychologists are setting long term goals like healthy eating and exercise, balancing between day-to-day tasks and creative passions, and not being afraid of the big changes like changing career paths or moving to a new city.

---

First Metaverse Seoul, now metaNesia — the metaverse is reeling in governments, too: Indonesia has created its own metaverse under a bid to vie with Facebook and Google, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir said, according to Bloomberg. PT Telkom, the country’s state-run telecommunications company, launched “metaNesia,” a virtual platform that is meant to help push operating micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) amid a rapidly-altering online landscape. While the details are scant, Thohir said metaNesia will be home to small businesses showcasing products on a level of other leading foreign businesses. It will also include a Metaverse Mall and a Metaverse concert, he said, with plans to host an NFT marketplace and others later this year.

Not what we’re talking about? Check our explainers on NFTs and the metaverse (here and here).

Income is king in volatile markets: Equities may have been doing a little better in recent days — but that doesn’t mean investors are returning to riskier asset classes amid a rally prompted by the US Federal Reserve’s latest bumper rate hike, Bloomberg reports. Last week’s 75-bps hike prompted the biggest two-day rally ever for US stocks as traders bet that the US central bank may have reached peak tightening. But the S&P 500 is still down 13% YTD, recessionary fears on high inflation have not dissipated, and risk-off sentiment remains — meaning some of the biggest inflows are going to high-earning, dependable assets like dividend-focused exchange traded funds (ETFs), treasuries, and high-grade corporate bonds, the newswire reports.