What Every Teenager Needs to Hear

Everyone‘s teenage years look different. Some find their first love, some get their first paycheck, and some buy their first car. It‘s a time where validation through our peers, social media, and our family is particularly potent. We compare our love lives, follower counts, and grades with the ones around us so we can place ourselves in the social hierarchy and, in a way, attain security. This thought process is not healthy. We are focusing on the wrong things here! Instead, let‘s look at what actually is worth investing energy and thought into:

Build connections & knowledge.

Even though financial literacy and making money is important in your teen years, it should not be your main focus. Money will come and go, but knowledge and connections will stay with you for the rest of your life. Don‘t “find your passion“. Instead, figure out what your ideals are: What standards or principles do you want to achieve? These can be personal attributes, societal standards, or individual goals (justice, freedom, equality,…).  Figure out what your values are: What principles or beliefs guide your behavior? Is it honesty, integrity, compassion? Figure out what you believe in. When we work hard for something that we don‘t believe in, it makes us stressed out. When we work hard for something that we do believe in, it makes us passionate. Passion is not the entry point, it‘s the exit point.

Finding yourself isn‘t really how it works.

You aren't a ten-dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You're also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering of who you were before the world got its hands on you.

Emotions are temporary.

No matter what you’re feeling; the highest high on your wedding day or the lowest low when you’ve lost a loved one: That emotion will not stay. Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. Also important: You are not your thoughts and emotions. They do not define you. Emotions will come over you one minute and disappear the next minute. If they were the real you, they would not be fleeting. Let them pass you, and you will feel less anxious.

It gets better.

At times, you will feel stressed out, confused, and unmotivated. You will feel like you‘re muddling through rather than living. Keep going, it can get better. Adults are just as confused about what‘s going on as you are. People are willing to help, take it if you need it. Stress often makes us lose sight of the big picture because we fall into a tunnel vision: “If A does not go as planned, B will not happen, and my life will be ruined.“ This belief encourages self-sabotage. When you catch yourself thinking like this, remember that when one door closes, two new doors open. 

You are not perfect.

Yes, you should be yourself. No, you‘re not perfect. Don‘t build yourself up to be the hero (or victim) of every story. You have to learn how to both grow and edit yourself. If you are not the same person you were two years, months, or even weeks ago, you are doing something right. Listen to other people. Consider their points of view, no matter how ridiculous they seem to you. Try to expand yours. Practice self-awareness. As Carl Gustav Jung once said: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.“

Written by Saskia (: