What is my life’s worth? This is a question that comes to my mind frequently and I am not able to analyze the correct interpretation of it. Every new day, I get an opportunity to meet new people and share life’s valuable experiences. I meet all categories of people and trust me sometimes I doubt myself whether I should be sitting with them or not!
WHAT’S THE “FUN” FACTOR OF THE TEENAGERS?
The other day I was with these two people (a guy and a girl) who were pursuing their college education in Delhi. Seeing two school friends meeting each other after a long duration, you expect them to be emotional or talk about how everything has changed now and how they used to be in school. But these two started talking about the “fun” in their lives and in their batch mates and mutual friends’ lives.
Now, what exactly is fun here? It is either getting drunk or laid or having many boyfriends/girlfriends or partying or drugs or gossiping about people who are more sunken into the ground and that’s about it. A person who’s not into any of the above-stated activities will be treated as a boring and monotonous survivor, what-so-ever be their life. So basically, the person is judged to be fun loving on the basis of his ability to get vodka on the rocks, get intimate with anyone, having weed or gossiping about other low lives from the same town.
THE INTROSPECTION
This experience took me into another world, where I could introspect about my life. I was definitely not what those two were but I wasn’t really sure anymore as to who I was. I got confused,a little lost and very much disgusted. But then the way they made me sit and hear their conversation, I actually felt like an alien to this planet and didn’t exactly fit into their world. On being asked if I was “fun”, my answers were negating and so was my fun quotient.
When I was in school, I was a true friend to all, notorious and studious in front of the teachers, career-oriented and focused, singer, comedian, dramatic, talkative (a lot), popular to the mainstream socialites and a good human. I was proclaimed to be the “Rock star” of the school (not passing the buck, I actually have a written proof!)
So I am humbled by the fact as to what transition is this? Being fun was this or being fun was that? Which commission sets in the criteria to be “fun”? Because I definitely am somewhere in the middle of it and that takes me nowhere. This is not just these two people I met but the majority of teenagers are like that, their lives revolve around all “fun factor”. Gone are the days when an all-rounder was what every kid aspired for and every mother boasted about. To justify their logic of being “fun” they added, “we have one life and we should have all the experiences”. Are experiences in life restricted to all this dawdle? Seriously? Why has all this happened to people’s mindset?
WHERE DOES THIS “FUN” FACTOR EVOLVE FROM?
Confusion in Teenagers
There are moments in life when a person is unable to understand what path to choose or what decisions to make. This dilemmatic trauma is seen in every teenager and often they tend to question their real worth. Between this confusion, people often indulge themselves into such habits that obstruct their clarity of finding themselves. They are not able to realize their capabilities, responsibilities, priorities and their aspirations.
Escaping from the situation
As a result of the confusion, they often push themselves into such situations and becoming “fun”. They think that their worries fade away in those flashy parties and limitless drinking. While in reality, they just escape from their problems and teenage kicks for a little while.
Trauma in Teenage
Teenagers these days face so much pressure from every sect of life and their mind has so much stuff to deal with. Parents, career, love, friendship, education and other such major issues are deep-rooted within them. All these issues push them into a vicious circle of teenage trauma. It starts with a problem, moves forward to those traumatic feelings, then escaping those feelings and ends to again the mess created by that escape medium.
Signs for Traumatic Teenage Suffering
There are several different signs in a teenager that will tell if she/he is undergoing a traumatic suffering or a low phase in the life. These are as follows:
Behavioural Changes
- Irritability, anger or hostility
- Sadness or hopelessness
- The feeling of running away
- Agitation and restlessness
- Overthinking towards each and everything
- Tearfulness or frequent crying
- Feeling of guilt
Withdrawal from day to day activities and other people around
- Loss of interest in activities which once felt good
- Change in eating and sleeping habits
- Withdrawal from friends and family
- The feeling of “no one understands me”
- Thoughts to stay alone and aloof
- Lack of feeling worthy
- Thinking everyone else is superior
Loss of Energy
- Lack of enthusiasm and motivation
- Lack of energy
- Difficulty in focusing or concentrating
- Doing illogical and loopy things
- Totally broken
When somebody has such a mindset towards life at any point, lives real worth seems to be the major puzzle to fit them in. When people are unable to find a way out of this, they then choose to do those “fun” activities explained above which are actually the opposite of fun. With repeated practise of such drinking and illicit activities, people get habitual. They tend to stop bothering who they really are and what they want from life. Once a person loses himself/herself, it is quite hard to get up and bring back the old innocent self that they always were and loved about themselves. So does that mean there is no way out?
Ways to get out of the situation
Small Mental Exercise
To brush aside such feelings, you need a memory or a dream that made you happy and that doesn’t include anything else apart from you and you want to achieve more than anything else. That memory would be strong enough to make you draw parallels as to who you were and who you are. Try it and you’d see! Take up the following small mental exercise to try this-
- Try to recollect childhood memories by investing some time in looking at old photographs.
- Do things that make you happy like painting, dancing, singing or any such related field.
- Talk to new people or engage yourself with their stories.
- Convince yourself “You’re good enough and everyone loves you”
- Tell your problems to a trusted and mature person. They’d give you good advice on whatever problems you face.
“Communication”: As the Healing Agent
It is important to communicate your feelings and experience with others because when a person gets to hear experiences from other people they not only learn about different life experiences but also get a solution and inspiration to come out of their own problems. Experiences are what jolt you, mould you, and make you stronger and better as an individual. This way every person who’s facing such a depression phase in their life can deal with it with courage and conviction and make themselves a better individual. There is a difference between insanity and deviation from the track and once a person is able to realize this difference, they get to know about life’s worth.
One should always try and be a better and happy individual than just a people’s favourite. People’s mindsets are never statutory and they will not always be able to put you in the right position. It’s only you and your values that will drive you through the storms and drop you to your worth’s utopia.
So do you still think “being fun” is the answer to your life’s worth? Or is it your happiness, genuineness, focus and ambition that will take you out of Neverland? Life is what you make it and not what makes you. Twist and turn your life the way you want it to be and not what others want to see!
After all, YOLO!
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhot