How is happiness portrayed in teenagers
By: Mariana Bula 10°B
The international Happiness Day is celebrated on March the 20th; and due to this celebration, I began to wonder how happy are us teenagers? As adolescents we are constantly going through multiple changes of emotions that are not always intended, and since we have a lot of hormones going through our bodies, sometimes we can be a lot more sad and annoyed than happy. Plus, since last year has been totally different for everyone and caused a big lifestyle change, most of us have had a lot of ups and downs. However, I believe it's important to try to be happy; otherwise, life will be crazy, and we are not going to be having a good time. Instead, we will consume ourselves in constant stress and a lot of preoccupations that shouldn't be there, because we’re going exactly through a period of time where life should be exciting.
I’ve noticed that there are always a lot of things that can kill anyone's mood, but sometimes we let those things really get to us; affecting the way we feel, our mood, emotions, thoughts or even affecting our motivation to do things. As teenagers, we get really insecure because we are self-aware of how we look, how we talk, how we act. Lots of the time we feel like people are judging us because we get really self-conscious about what others might think about us. Therefore, feeling like we don't belong can easily affect our happiness towards life. Of course, everyone is different, and some people are easily more affected than others; yet I do believe that these should not be aspects that disturb us long term.
Something I do have to admit, is that we do like to be pleased; and when we're not , we become really dramatic and feel like our life is crumbling down. We have a tendency to believe our parents don’t let us do the things we want or that spark joy, because they are mad at us. For example, we're exactly in the age in which we want to be and go out with our friends every day to enjoy life with them, meet new people, go to parties, plan trips and a lot of other things. As a result, we are always hoping that our parents will let us do all of this, but when they say no, it's really unmotivating. We tend to get mad at them because we're feeling that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that is going to be wasted.
Talking to my friends about this, we “discovered” that we are really dramatic, because we can’t let situations like these determine our happiness. I came to the conclusion that even though we don’t always show it, we are happy. Of course there’s times that we might feel blue, like everyone else does, but that doesn’t mean that our lives are miserable and everything is going the wrong way. To prove my point, I asked some of my friends to tell me if they are overall happy. This was their response:
“I’m happy with everything I have ever since I began to be thankful for everything around me. I’m happy because of the people that surround me, especially my family and friends. I’m happy because I have access to a lot of privileges that others might not be able to have. On the other hand, there’s times when I'm not happy, because there are a lot of people that suffer daily and I feel impotent because I know I can't do anything for them.”
“I’m happy because at the moment I feel good about myself and life in general. Obviously, I have some bad days and it also worries me a lot thinking about the future. But every time I don’t feel good for any apparent reason, I try to remember that at the end nothing matters and I’m currently living through the best years of my life. Therefore, I’ll not spend time regretting things that will later on have no importance.”
“Currently I'm happy because I feel like I'm living through experiences that I'll remember with a lot of emotion in the future. Despite COVID, I think I have managed to live very nice moments in my adolescence lately. I’m also happy because I feel like I am surrounded by people who love and value me; however, I believe that I must continue to work on self-love because it is something that greatly slows my happiness and causes me great concerns many times.”
“I’m happy because I consider myself a carefree person who doesn’t give much importance to minimal things that I know will not have much transcendence later on in my life. I am happy because I manage to spend a very good time with my friends, and because I manage to maintain a stable social life. I think I could be happier if I didn’t compare myself to others, and if appearances and material things didn’t matter as much to me.”
As you can see, even though we have concerns and different circumstances that make us sad, overall, we are happy (even if we are arrogant sometimes). We are happy, because thanks to God we have beautiful lives and opportunities. So, before you declare yourself with a fake depression over small insignificant acts, be grateful for everything that has made you smile.