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.
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.