By; Nihira Patel, Ryan Doh, and Shreya Aravind
All of us as teenagers put the weight of the world on our shoulders and expect nothing but perfection as an outcome. Whether that be in our social, academic, or professional lives, we tend to overanalyze every little detail and make ourselves unnecessarily anxious. The Lebanese poet, author, and philosopher, Khalil Gibran once said, “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” That is probably one of the best ways to summarize a modern teenager’s thought process about their future. We all want to ensure everything goes according to plan, causing ourselves to get hung up more on the plan itself than the outcome we are striving for.
As students, employees, siblings, and friends, we have different responsibilities within those roles, but we get hung up on the most trivial of concerns. In school, we will get engrossed by one grade we receive, clouding our judgment on the big picture. As employees, we will become so focused on getting tasks done that we don’t leave room for personal development. As siblings and friends, we tend to let our loyalties make our decisions for us, keeping us from finding a solution for all.
No matter the circumstance, us teenagers find a way to stress ourselves out and then our parents and other adults in our lives will continue to add to that stress.
Sometimes it is unknowingly, but in our parents’ attempts to “give us guidance” and their “wisdom,” they become overbearing and make us dwell even more on the things that we already are making ourselves panic about. “What schools are you applying to?” “What’s your GPA?” “How many APs are you taking?” “Have you started looking at internships?” “What will you do if you don’t get into college?” “How will you afford it?” These questions are ones we dread to hear, but can’t help to reflect deeply upon.
Our parents are often the source of our stress, yet we also worry about how we’re going to live without them when we’re away in college and living our lives. We spend the day stressing about our future, and at the end of the day, we go to sleep stressed.
Yet, this brings us back to an earlier point: are we genuinely stressing about our future, or just whether or not it will all go the unrealistically perfect way we want it to with no hardships along the way?
Around the world, parents hug their kids goodbye as they send their kids off into the next part of their lives: college. While college is the next, exciting chapter for many kids, thinking about the parties and socialization, there are many fears revolving around the idea of “a new school.”
Just like a kid transferring from one school to another, many new undergraduates go into the new environment knowing nobody, starting all over with the whole, “making friend ‘idea.” In addition, kids see themselves with new roommates and friends, away from their family. The whole idea of “change” is scary, as there is that certain feeling of failure, or the way one can’t meet new people, or that nobody will like me. The truth is, that so many other upcoming college students feel the same way, and it’s totally understandable.
While we all stressed about getting that good grade in high school, piled up on loads of English essays and that AP Bio homework, the same stress might add up to college life too. Once that high school graduation begins, many seniors think the high school stress fades away, and college will get better, but many kids still feel the overwhelming stress of transitioning to college, to some extent, even worse.
These fears of failure and change stress people’s minds. It’s hard to believe in a new moment of your life, especially when your environment, lifestyle, and friends are all turning into a new stage. Moments like these mainly cause the fear of social anxiety, depression, and workload stress.
As you can see, while you may be worried about making the transition into college, don’t worry, because we all are.
All this worrying about and trying to control the little things such as having a perfect GPA not even one decimal point less than a 4.0, cramming for AP tests, and writing your essays, to name a few, have made our lives significantly more stressful. And sometimes, we are not the root cause of this stress – outside circumstances, high expectations from parents, and even friends can cause us to become anxious and nervous about college. However, you should remember that we are all in the same boat and our advice is to relax a little bit, focus on your end goal, and have confidence in yourself.
You could meditate a bit, socialize in a stress free setting, practice an instrument, start a new project, learn that coding language that you’ve always wanted to learn, or even try a bit of everything.
Basically, find “your thing.”
Use it as a tool to unwind and do what makes you calm and relaxed, but don’t forget about your end goal.
Whatever you decide works for you, Spotivity can help in not only finding those activities near you, but also talk to other tennagers your age from across the country about what is going on in your life. Spotivity creates a community of people that are all struggling at the same time and for similar reasons. As it creates a safe space for all, it is the best way to not feel alone in the struggles as a teenager at the times that you do. The app is set up in a way to be your “personal genie,” helping you get to where you ultimately need and want to go. This way, stress and loneliness can be minimized, allowing you to relax a bit and be as present as possible in the time that you do have as a teenager.
No matter what obstacles may come your way as you transition out of high school and into college, remember that “life is a journey, enjoy the ride.”
About Spotivity
Be #neverbored again by using the spotivity app and find activities that fit your needs. We help you find programing that can lead to your passion. Whether that is an art program to practice graffiti, a sports program to engage in competition, an education support class to improve your grades, or just finding someone to talk to – spotivity has your back. Backed by research and continually informed by users, spotivity is the tool to help you unlock your world and expand the list of options you can take advantage of.
