its kinda scary how your whole life depends on how well you do as a teenager
Dear teenagers: I promise it doesn’t.
I spent most of my teenage years lying in bed because I had undiagnosed depression. My grades were very poor.
(I’d tell you what my GPA was, but I have no idea because a year after you graduate from high school you forget what your high school GPA was forever, because it doesn’t matter.) I didn’t do any extra-curriculars. I didn’t do much of anything, because again, depression. I had no friends, literally none, until the my senior year when I had one.
I just turned thirty, and I’m not going to pretend my life is perfect. But I live in a great apartment in a nice neighborhood near a forest preserve.
I graduated college with honors.
I work in the arts, which is what I went to school for. I have lots of friends. I make enough to live on and have disposable income to spend on the dumb nerdy shit I like. I still have depression, but now I know about it and I have a lot of ways of dealing with it.
I get it, there’s so much pressure on you right now, and everywhere you turn you get the message that your performance now will determine the rest of your life. But the people sending you that message are full of shit.
Looking back there are about two things I did during my teen years that matter at all in my life now: 1. Meeting that one friend, and 2. Developing an interest in writing. The rest of those years feel like a total waste looking back. But at the same time, my life is so much better now. It doesn’t matter that I wasted my teen years.
Your whole life does not depend on how well you do as a teenager. I promise.