In recent years, an overwhelming wave of negativity has taken over teenagers. Sure, teens have always been known to carry a certain level of angst or grouchiness, but it usually dies down after middle school. Lately it feels like everywhere you look someone is rolling their eyes at other students for having fun. To those eye rollers out there, I would issue a warning: I have been that person before and I can assure you that existence is so much better when you forget about how “cringy” it is to enjoy life.
Only seeing the bad in the world around you is exhausting and it takes a toll on your mental health after a while. Most of the time, this extreme negativity comes from our own insecurities. The solution? Rather than putting down peers for trying their best or simply having a good time, we should be working to figure out what we are struggling with and put energy towards that. The second I stopped trying to see everyone around me as evil or stupid, I found that many things in my life that made me unhappy were suddenly far easier to deal with.
Take school as an example. As disgusting as you might find the notion, school isn’t that bad; in fact, it’s pretty wonderful. Even on days when I am tired and have too much homework and just don’t want to go, whining about it never helps. Instead, I get out of the car and try to go to first period thinking about what I have to look forward to that day.
At the end of the day, I truly believe that West is best. I love our teachers and our campus and the fact that we have an involved student body. Going to school events is really fun and something that a lot of students take for granted. We should be taking advantage of every home game for every sport and go crazy cheering instead of crossing our arms in judgment. West has some of the best performing arts departments in the state so we should be showing up in support of them just as much as we do for the football team.
Not only is school more enjoyable when you stop looking for reasons to hate it, it’s also easier. I don’t know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way, a lot of us fell victim to the idea that trying is embarrassing and something you should never be caught doing. It turns out that putting in effort eliminates half the struggle of school.
Most of the journey to improving your mental health is making an effort to have a positive outlook on life. Afterall, the cynic is no wiser than the optimist, he is just more miserable.