My years in middle and high school were rough for a lot of reasons. The last thing I needed were adults telling me “these are the best days of your life!”. That was the most demoralizing thing I could have imagined back then.
Once I was 18 and in control of my life, things got so much better. There have been different chapters, but they’ve all been good or at least memorable in their own way.
What I would (and have) told kids who are clearly having a rough time is that things can and will get better. When you’re a kid, and bad situations that are entirely out of your control to change are happening, life can be miserable. Eventually you get some agency, and that goes a long way. Sometimes as an adult, things come and happen too, but telling a kid who is currently miserable to look forward to something better is a lot more helpful. Barring some outside tragedy, life as an adult is much less grinding than being a kid shaped cog.
Yeah, high school is some of the worst times in my life. If my kid complained, I wouldn’t say “it only gets worse,” I’d say “this is a rough time, but remember, none of the stuff that is hard is real. It’s all just training. The school stuff is training you for deadlines and heavy workloads. The social stuff is training for personal and professional relationships. Try to think of this as the tutorial for life, where you must do X action to proceed, and maybe it’s hard because it’s new, and it’s frustrating because you don’t realize it’s a tutorial and think “this is the game.” It’s not. It becomes an open-world game after this. It’s harder, but it can be WAY better, and you have a lot more control.”
Thirded. And even when I got control, I had a better time in my late 30s than I did at any time prior to that. I had a lot of absolutely great misadventures in my 20s and I’ll be forever grateful. But in my late 30s I had the wisdom to know what bullshit I could get into and out of, enough money to do it, a body that wasn’t beat to hell just yet, and very few shits to give.
Things started to even out at 40 and have been pretty steady the last couple of years. It’s amazing in a different way.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I were giving advice to 15 year old me I would definitely say that the best is yet to come. Just gotta keep your eyes peeled for the opportunity.
I struggled with this as well, having not enjoyed my teenage years that much.
How I coped was to tell myself that people asserting that period X is the best years of your life are people whose lives peaked at that time, and that this won’t be true if I made sure to not have my life peak then.
I’m happy to say that I’ve proven the assertion wrong in my case. It’s been a steady climb upwards, with every year being better than the latter.
I love this sentiment. In my mid 40s I went through a period of “it’s all downhill from here” but I took steps to change my life for the better and I’m living the dream now.
Time is going to win eventually but I’m going to fight it every step of the way and will make damn sure I enjoy the battle.
That quote from everything everywhere all at once really got me. Kindness is how I fight. In a world of hardship and bravado being jolly and soft is my act of rebellion.
This would have sounded like absolute woo-ey bullshit to me a few years ago. Until I worked at a place that turned openly hostile toward me. On a work trip, I realized quite literally:
“If I’m smiling, those people who care about me will be happy I’m happy. And those people who hate me will be PISSED I’m happy.”
It’s perfect. It really is the ultimate “fuck you” rebellion, as silly as it may sound.
As I’ve aged, I’ve become less emotional, period. It works both ways. I don’t have the high of the extreme kids as often, but painful stuff is also less-impactfull.
There’s just not much novelty to experiences anymore, so I just kinda live through them and move on.
A few years ago the woman I absolutely intended to marry and spend my life with fairly suddenly broke it off. If I had been 20 it would have debilitated me, but at 40 it wasn’t the same.
Yeah, it sucked and derailed my future plans, but I also had a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that night I had to prepare for, so I just kept moving forward and lived my life.
I ended up being upset that I wasn’t really that upset. There was no weeping, hatred, name-calling, etc. It was just a shitty thing that happened.
Yeah, it sucked and derailed my future plans, but I also had a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that night I had to prepare for
That line made me laugh so hard, cheers!
I’m 40 and I think with the strongest faith people who say this kind of things are an absolute toxin.
