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.
What steps did you take?
Drugs...
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.
The best way to piss off your haters is to live a happy life.
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!
Staff reports are serious business, lol.
I think it's emotional maturity that comes along as you learn to regulate your emotions. Probably some hormonal stuff too that gets figured out as you age.
Yeah this has been an interesting thing I’ve noticed too as I age, I feel very regulated emotionally and even-keeled. I find it quite refreshing
I'm 40 and I think with the strongest faith people who say this kind of things are an absolute toxin.
Yeah, people who peak during highschool are so annoying.
Not my problem they have the ambition of a gerbil.
If you're going to sit there with a straight face and tell me Lindsay "joy doesn't exist in the real world" Graham was wrong, I don't know what I'll do.
honestly when I was younger it was mostly nicer because you looked forward to having a nice life. Seeing it not come to pass and realize its not going to get better is sorta a downer.
This confuses me. If you grew up in hardship, what made you think that the future was going to be better than the present?
Also, your description sounds overly general. Nobody has a life that consists entirely of nice moments. I'm not sure why or how anyone would ever have expected otherwise.
My young life was not hardship but not a life of excess. Type where I made some homemade toys and such and my father had not completed high school. Thing is at that time there was an idea that if you did well in school you could go on to get a good job that would provide for a family and a decent home and (yes im just old enough) have a pension to retire on. The trajectory was different with the environment pre reagan as it seemed like we were polluting less and cleaning things up. Took awhile to realize just how much they had torn that stuff apart or moved it overseas. Now it feels like you have to be incredibly successful to have the American dream. Paid off house (yes the dream was not to have a lifelong mortgage that you never get out from under) and a rustic summer vacation place (or just yearly nice vacations) is possible if your a doctor or lawyer. Now a two bedroom condo on a mortage you can afford the monthly nut and retirement savings where the math does not look good is doing pretty darn well.
I've started going on afternoon walks where I just go around town snooping, smelling flowers, looking at cool bugs, and seeing how long I can walk along the curb. It's actually been really great.
I remembered how when I was a kid, a square meter of nature held infinite fascination. I could just squat there for hours (RIP being able to hold a squat for more than a minute lol), just like peering into this fractal of wonder.
So yeah, maybe not quite that level, but I've been recapturing a bit of that.
Joy isn't reserved for the young, but it's sure fucking easier to be joyful when your body hurts less because you're far less likely to have one or more chronic pain conditions in your youth.
Your heart won't harden? It might just with atherosclerosis and enough time.
So go enjoy the joy even more now while it's still easier.
As much as i dont want to be the adult saying this to youth. And i won't be outwardly cynical enough to actually say it to anyone. It is really funny when i know that's how i felt in my youth, and i know how i feel in my mid-30s. It's creeping up on me. Tapping me on the shoulder. Wondering why i am still pretending its not there, and no matter how hard i fight and cling on, i am still falling into the realisation that i can't be a kid forever.
i am still falling into the
realisationmisconception* that i can’t be a kid forever.You definitely can. I have met plenty of people who preserved this part of themselves. It's too often outside pressure that makes people abandon it. A few weeks ago my mother berated me for owning a game console as a grown man but it didn't phase me because the little history I lived through has taught me some lessons. When my father was my age he was working overtime to provide as much as possible for his family. He'd come home tired and stressed and self medicated with booze to somehow keep going. I'd often get a speech about how much he sacrificied for me but here's the thing, I never asked for it. Did I like living in the big house after we moved from our small rented apartment? Sure, about as much as living in a big apartment complex with a bunch of other kids to play with. What I didn't like was having a dad who was constantly burned out and angry so I made sure not to live as he did. Recently I took my wife and our dog fossil hunting. We were digging through rocks and mud having a blast and around us were a bunch of kids. Meanwhile their parents were standing in the back complaining there aren't enough benches to sit on while the kids have fun. I will never get this old. Not in a hundred years. As long as I can hold my hammer I will be right next to those kids digging for paleontological treasure instead of standing in the back with the bitter "grown ups".
Right right, but that's totally different from saying that you can't make today better than yesterday. Nobody ever expected things would stay the same, but that doesn't mean that they all get worse in every possible way.
Six decades from now, when your health really is failing in every possible way, that's the time when you're allowed to say that it only gets worse from here.
Ha! Jokes on you, I've never been happy.
I feel like life gets better and better and I'm 40, so...
Outside of tragedies beyond your control, like illness and so on, it's also a matter of trying to have a fun and good life every day.
I'm 43 and I feel like I'm living in a movie after the credits rolled. It's joyful when I sleep I guess.
In the US, at age 18 you become a debtor.
Somewhere in your 20s or 30s you become a real estate speculator.
Eventually people start owing you money, and then the cycle repeats itself with the next generation.
This system is anti-joy, and I will never accept it into my heart. I will fight it with every ounce of my strength until the day that I die. This is my joy.
Good Luck kid. Try not to lose that spark.
I don't want to say it gets worse, so I tell them to enjoy being young and have experiences while they can, because it gets more difficult.
Like, if you do stupid things and break a bone, better do it while it will heal much faster. If you want to get good at gymnastics or anything that requires being physically fit, better do it while being young.
I'm starting my 40ies and can only see how my knees are starting to hurt and my body aches in ways I didn't know it could.
My grandmother is 95 and wants to die. She was active for her whole life but now that she is losing sight, hearing, and is mostly bound to her apartment, she's had enough. And I can understand.
You certainly can stay young and joyful in your head, but at some point your body is not going to help.
Agree. Op is young and supple
That's not how it works, unfortunately.
The longer you are an adult, the more people in your life will die. It's shitty but that's how time works.
Sometimes that's a plus.
My adult niece and I had a convo years ago when she was still in high school. I told her that she was in the most challenging part of life and that in a few years, when she turned 18, it would start getting better with autonomy. I don't know if it helped her during a challenging time, but I hope it validated her struggles and gave her something to look forward to because being a teenager in school is the worst.
Often people say "life is what you make of it", but that's not quite true. You can try to steer your life by your actions, but in reality fortune plays a greater role than you can imagine.
I have been very fortunate in my life, most people I know have not been. From broken dreams, blossoming mental illness, to just plain old death - a lot of the people I care about have been robbed of joy in their lives.
It's not something they gave up through weakness of character, it was something taken from them. When you are young, you've maybe only had a couple of bad rolls, but when you're older odds are you'll be worse off (the probability of misfortune often being higher than that of fortune).
I don't necessarily say that to my kid as a warning. In fact, yesterday it was said to her as an encouragement. She has a significant sum of unspent allowance and she saw something she really wanted but decided she didn't want to spend her money on it. I told her that she is at a point in her life where she can spend money on whatever she wanted and not have to worry about bills or rent or what happens if she runs out and she should take advantage of that. So she bought the thing she wanted and she was happier for it.
I remember, before I bought my first car at age 17, I had a bunch of money from working, and nothing really to spend it on. My dad said, "When you buy a car, that will all be gone." He was definitely right about that.
That's good advice, and I'm glad she took it.
Perhaps a trillion galaxies out there. Numbers of stars in a typical galaxy is about 100 billion. But at least we have more grains of sand on our planet.
Anyway, life most probably gets better after high school, and most probably keeps getting better until you're old enough to develop some disease. Or perhaps you die in war, or in a hospital bed, or homeless under a bridge.
I truly don't know where I'm going with this.
None of us know where any of this is going. That’s why we have this game of ‘dueling truisms’ here in the comments.
It’s a perspective thing to a degree but it’s also your ability to avoid the crushing weight of reality.
Like approaching 40 I can appreciate that I finally have some money for the things I like, that I have more freedom and wisdom, that I still have the ability to start things, etc
But at the same time there’s the crushing reality. To get that money I trade time and if there’s one thing I miss about being young it’s the amount of free time I had. I just got a bass and I love playing it but I can only do like 20-30 minutes a day and have to skip many days because of life. When I was 16 or even 22 I could often practice drums or piano for hours per day. I could work less of course but that’s not usually an option for most people without changing jobs and also can lead to financial insecurity
Then the even less fun parts of recognizing your body just doesn’t work as effectively. The permanent neck injury I got from work when I was 25 that didn’t bother me as much then is significantly worse now despite physical therapy for years, cortisone, regular strength training, etc. what used to be a stiff neck is now genuine pain that impacts all the way to my shoulders. Knee injury from youth is similar. Then the just unfair bits like my vision deteriorating significantly. It’s not injury related, just lost the genetic lottery.
The cognitive decline as well. I’m still plenty sharp but I can recognize my math processing becoming slightly slower, tripping up my words more often, needing to read things more thoroughly than I did when I was 24 and in grad school, takes me longer to learn things like the bass, my reaction times in videogames are worse, etc. It’s nothing major of course, no family history of dementia thankfully, but it’s part of how the human body works. My job involves assessing people’s neurological state and somewhere in your mid to late 30s starts the slow decline. For some people this will just get to “pretty forgetful, senior moments” and then they die. For others not so lucky they get dementia and have a truly tragic end of days.
But at the same time I do think a sense of optimism is important. I just think it’s important to be rational and realistic about this. Radical acceptance helps here. I can’t get back youth or time lost or whatever, so no sense getting too distraught over it. This applies to youth as well, who may not deal with any of the above but often have their own problems that cloud the potential positives in their life. Anyone can lose their sense of joy and everyone has shit going on. Maybe for them it’s more existential dread, the crushing weight of finding direction, etc. The shift to optimism is that I remember despite the ugliness of reality there are still good times to be had, even if my neck hurts the whole time
Where you still living at home at 22?
At 22 I was in an campus apartment which was basically a fancy dorm. I moved back home soon after because I graduated right around 2008 during the housing crisis bullshit and the only jobs I could find until 2010 were minimum wage and part time.
why?
"Joy as an Act of Resistance"
Fuck em all will find the silver lining
My childhood was trash. My life has only gotten better as time goes by
I had my moments of “wow, adulthood is shit” but I’m trying to change that.
I feel like life is shit in general, regardless of age. The reason youthfulness seems better to me is the lack of understanding how the world really works. Joy can be had at any age though, I find more joy today than I did as a kid. I'm 42 and just got back from the skate rink with my daughter and wife and we all had huge smiles and fun the whole time. There's always moments of shit but also of happiness. What you focus on determines how you feel IME.
Honestly, being an adult is pretty similar to being a kid, except you have more freedom. I still have to spend 8 hours a day doing something I don't particularly love, except on weekends where I get 2 days of free time. I have to take the results of what I've done all day and turn them in to other people (homework = bills), but there's a little leftover for fun time/stuff.
Here's the big difference, and why nobody can ever convince me that childhood is superior to adulthood - if I decide to make bad choices and have ice cream for dinner, or stay up until 2am on a weeknight, nobody is going to say shit.
The freedom of adulthood that allows ME to decide if I want to make a choice I know will hurt me later is the best part. IDGAF what anyone says, sometimes I want pancakes and ice cream for dinner.
The best part is yet to come: you'll get sick and then you'll die. Alone. In the rain.
Like tears in the rain…
I remember thinking like this once. Then life got a lot worse.
What keeps you going these days?
Honestly? Habit.
Life frequently gets better after high school. You get to make your own decisions, be who you want, be with who you want, and live where you want.
In my experience, the people who told me high school was the best time had very boring adult lives.
I imagine the people who said this probably did have a fantastic time in high school. Probably to the point they ended up socially aimless afterward.
Perhaps I'm just over imagining, but I picture them reminiscing about scoring two touchdowns in a single high school game. The kind of people who post about high school memories on Facebook.
I am 43 and finally living my best life thanks to a cocktail of psych meds, therapy, and support from my spouse and kids.
I'm older than most here and I lead a mostly good life. I think the saying is mainly regarding death. In youth, you don't experience as much of it, but as you age, more and more people pass around you until it's you, alone.
The realization that life is one day at a time wether you like it our not is a heavy one.
I have more than a half century and keep waiting to feel jaded, but wake up happy every day, am delighted by lizards running around, and the sky and clouds, the escalator that a shopping cart can ride up makes me happy.
I didn't have a particularly happy childhood, a sort of awful teenagerhood, but adulthood suits me much better. Pay for work? Hell yeah. Make what I want for supper? Fantastic. Love having a family, and so far have also been happy seeing them grow up and move out too. I have enjoyed being a grownup, it's delightful. I happily traded lack of control for responsibility and it's a better deal.
I have no dreams that i can achieve in this life and my heart grew cold long ago, but life is still getting better for me anyway. I'm still somewhat optimistic about the world. We don't have to give up just because things suck. On the contrary: that's when we can do the most in the world.
“Would you go back to being a kid again?”
I think that implies retaining a certain level of awareness that you were an adult so that you could have an appreciation for the time travel.
The only reason I think I’d want to be a kid again is to see all the people that are gone today. I’m well past middle age, and there are fewer and fewer people left from my childhood, and the togetherness I experienced with family was something I didn’t really appreciate until it stopped happening - along with my failure to ask what their lives were like and learn history from their viewpoint. That’s what I remember most. Not the toys, the idle days at school or with friends. It’s Holidays. Bored out of my skull with people I didn’t appreciate, but yet being glad they were there. A lot of them aren’t anymore.
Otherwise being a kid kinda sucked. Your life revolves around what everyone else wants you to do and you can’t really say no, fuckit, I’m calling in sick today. All the stupid drama at schools. Your freedom (pre-internet) was held by your parent(s) willingness to get their car keys or if you had any money and a bicycle. I didn’t like school. I didn’t fit in. I would not go back.
Yeah, it’s better to be an adult in most ways. (I say that with the caveat that I understand some may have had easy childhoods or have very difficult adult lives. Meh, this turned into a bigger post than I expected. I guess I’ll leave it anyway).
Oh my sweet summer child.
Wait till you wakeup one day and can barely walk, for no apparent reason.
Or you have an injury that doesn't want to heal, and docs are scratching their heads, but won't give you pain meds, or even steroids that you've seen help this issue in the past.
Or you get fired for nothing you've done.
Or the business you work for goes belly up.
Or a crazy person in your life threatens to kill you, so you have to be alert all the time.
Or you're in so much pain, constantly, that you can't even think.
Life is hard. Shit happens.
I think you missed the point of the post.
Do you think I don’t know that life can be hard? I’ve had bad things happen to me for no reason. I know what crippling depression feels like.
I’m also committed to finding joy and beauty in life, because it’s always there, if you know where and how to look.
Yeah OP reads as someone who has a silver spoon in their mouth.
There is soooo much shit that is out of peoples control.
It doesn't matter if you want to "manifest" happiness if you literally cant afford to eat.
Oh i get what OP is saying. Just drink the Kool aid and bury your head in the sand pretending the bad shit isn't real and can't hurt you right up to the point it devours you.
Did you have an adult in your life constantly telling you how lucky you are and it will only get worse when you were a teen? That shit robs you of your joy then and later; that mentality sets you up for failure. That’s what OPs post is describing. And if you think that people who are disabled or can’t make ends meet can’t have joy in their lives then you’re reinforcing the narrative that you must have certain things in order to “win at life”. Even if there is an element of truth to the sentiment there’s no reason to blow out of proportion that life is one endless stream of misery once you’re X many years older
Been thru most of these. Lived with chronic pain. Wife and I lost our jobs this year within a few months of each other. Had someone credibly threaten to sue me for more than I could afford. Dealt with depression & suicidality. Worked from home with a gun on my desk because the cops wouldn't do anything about my batshit insane neighbor.
The list of problems I have proven to myself I can survive grows longer every day. I have the contact info for a good psychiatrist, lawyer, and physical therapist. I know who my support network is, and exactly how far I can stretch a dollar. Yes, bad things happen now that are worse than when I was younger. But I am stronger and more in control of my life. Problems that would have broken me down when I was just starting out are things I can now handle without so much as elevating my heart rate.
And, there are new joys that have only become accessible to me through the benefit of experience! Fears I have conquered, hangups I have gotten over, people I have warmed up to.
Getting older doesn't just suck. I think it just seems that way because people (on the internet at least) find it really easy and relatable to complain.
Almost all of those could happen while still in high school.
None of those mean live necessarily or even on average gets worse after high school.
I'm in my second half of life as I plan to live to be a minimum of 100 years old. Part of my plan, is to never retire from work. It made be an American thing but I don't think retiring is for me. I like working even when I'm not crazy about the job but I've gone back to school to get a Master's and just got a job more in line with my education. And I still have at least two more career changes. Working further into my field as a scientist and then probably end up teaching at the college level all the knowledge and wisdom I've gained in the field.
The best news I've had in the last few weeks is that someone thought I was at least 22 years younger than I am. I thanked them and told them I could be their parent. That totally freaked them out and they asked how is that I look and seem so much younger than I am.
My only explanation, I keep making friends regardless of that new friend's age. I keep playing video games, and reading. I also just walk and have a cheerful attitude towards life. Believing in myself, and a firm desire to live to be older than 100 years of age with the same passion for life I have had since I was 13 years old.
Lastly, I don't have a specific religion or belief in an afterlife so I've always intended to make the best of THIS life than worry about what happens when I'm gone.
Yeah. I totally get it. It does take effort to preserve any wonder and stave off cynicism. Especially in these days of ever growing inequality and tougher material conditions for folks in general. When I was growing up there sure seemed more cause for optimism. Now, folks who look squarely at reality find it tough to muster, what with stagnated wages, an erosion of personal ties, a generally lousy work/life balance for most.
Still, I try to look to and look after my friends, my community. It's not much, but it's what I can do. I've seen hardship, illness, betrayal, personal devaluation, loss. But I'd rather not become a bitter, old bastard like so many I see in this region.
I fucking hate this soo much! People always tolled me this when I went to school. I fucking hated my life and if it would only get worse, then why even bother living? Well turns out I was right, and way more than I could've imagined. Now as an adult I make my own rules and I've never been happier!
I'm 35. I've had some tough times. I've struggled and I'm sure I'll struggle again at some point, but aside from politics and covid, I've been in a sort of golden age for like six years, and things have been getting better throughout. There have been some shitty spots, but it's been joyful in general. There was a time about ten years ago that I truly thought about giving up for good, and I'm really glad that I didn't. I never thought I'd have so much to live for; I didn't even think I deserved a shot at it.
Work hard (but also rest), stay curious, and tell jokes. Joy is possible, but you may need to be the one to provide it, but it pays dividends.
Life has only gotten better as I got older. I'm 50 now and I know things will get worse in many ways as my health gets worse in 10-20 years, but so far life has been great. Don't believe the internet cynics, life is what you make of it.
This isnt even a settled fact.
For example: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/happiness/happiness-over-the-lifespan
Argues a few things:
Does happiness decline with age?
People often worry that happiness diminishes with age, but that’s actually not the case. One large study found just a slight overall dip in happiness between age 20 and age 70—on a scale of 1 to 10, average life satisfaction went from 5.8 to 5.4.
What is the happiness curve?
The happiness curve refers to the trajectory that happiness tends to follow as we age. People begin life fairly happy. Around age 18, their happiness begins to decrease, reaching a low point in their 40s. But after age 50, happiness begins to rise again. This U-shaped happiness curve has emerged consistently in large studies of Western societies.
So there is a common curve, but the curve is gradual.
It also notes the likely causes are that financial stability rises mid-life and improves happiness, while free time is at a minimum at the bottom of the curve and reduces happiness.
This has nothing to do with age and everything to do with culture, which can be changed.
Choose to be happy.
Ok buddy
see ya later kid, lol
FACT: they're wrong.
This graph has no units and there is no citation. It's not even wrong.
What units would you even measure happiness with in a poll? Isn't the citation at the bottom left of the graph?
I may be a bit top far down this curve :p
It's probably bullshit, but I like it, I'm at the bottom there.
TIL joy was reserved for me as a youth.
Welp, too late now.
WHERE IS THE FUCKING JOY
Lmao
