Kick away the anxiety! Just be yourself!
Do you know what is the biggest factor contributes to adolescent death in China? According to the statistics from the magazine The Economist, the suicide rate of Chinese teenagers has ranked first in the world . In China, about 100,000 teenagers die of suicide each year which is equivalent to two teenagers taking their own lives every minute. According to another survey ,Chinese youth suffering from mental disease like depression is up to 24%.It is really a fact that the young generation are under considerable psychological pressure and can hardly find ways to relieve their depression.
So why is that case? The old generation may argue that today’s young people never worry about food and clothing. Not like people from the 60s or 70s ,they didn’t have mental problems because they cannot even be adequately fed. So they can hardly understand the anxiety from the youth and sometimes even blame freedom for making people think too much and regard it as something guilty. Actually I’m not quite agree. In fact, there are two kinds of reason in the world. One is scientific and technological reason, which explores nature, grasps the way the world works and pursues truth. The other is called value reason, which studies society, individuals, and advocates goodness and beauty. These two kinds of reason are at opposite ends of the rational balance and constitute the human ability to understand and transform the world. However, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human beings have tasted the huge economic benefits brought by the development of science and technology, and the development of science and technology has entered an unprecedented era of rapid development. However, the research on human beings has not made breakthrough progress, and is even ignored by most people. From the fallacy of psychological counseling to the neglect of philosophy, sociology, psychology are enough to prove the balance is already tilting.
Teenagers today were born on a speeding train,new things emerge and change so quickly and they are always pushed by the outside world to learn more to keep up with the times, and can hardly spare time for their inner heart to grow .Their self-consciousness begin to awake ,but their limited energy and time not allow them to form their values completely .So the imbalance between the time and the individual appear. The feeling is just like what is said by the old professor Morrie: “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. We really don’t experience the world fully, instead ,we are doing what others do and what others want us to do.”
As a teenager ,a normal high school student,I also suffer from such pain before. I got mild depression half a year ago but now recover from it ,so I just would like to share with my peers some thoughts I gained during the period of time and hopefully can give out encouragement to more people.
Here’s something I do to improve my life quality :
Firstly, slow down your pace and do something useless. Most high school students give up their hobbies, because it won’t help their college entrance examination and will “waste” a lot of their time. I gave up my favorite guitar two years ago, but actually when I picked it up recently, I find it give me great power. After a whole day exhausting study ,I’d like to play the instrument and it can motivate me to keep going and give an outlet for my emotion. I also love photography ,in my spare time I’d like to take my camera to go to nature and enjoy recording the beauty of life. Unlike your study or work,these useless things are not result-oriented, which won’t put pressure on you, you just need to enjoy it and feel the pleasure it brings you. Another advantage of doing useless things is that it can give you new inspiration. Many people believe that it is easier to succeed by doing one thing for a long time , it is not necessarily true. From my point of view，it has two drawbacks. First, you tend to exaggerate the difficulty of a problem which is actually not so serious. Many young people ending their life because they regard their current difficulty the only important thing in their world, like a woman in love thinks the man is her world .But always remember ,there’s nothing that can make your world fall apart .Your hobbies can be a light in the darkness. What’s more ,if always focusing on one thing, you are prone to be tied to a fixed thinking pattern. Problems are often difficult to solve because we usually look at it from only one aspect instead of from different dimensions. If I sit in front of my computer the whole day ,I can write a complete essay ,but it lacks lively and vivid ideas, it is always when I hang out with my friends or do some sports ,some brand new ideas strike me .So keeping some hobbies is really important for one person ,because you will always have something to love, something to live every day .
What’s more ,it is necessary to have the ability of self-awareness and self-reflection. The philosopher Spinoza said "as long as we have a clear and definite understanding of pain, we no longer feel painful." As far as I’m concerned, the best way to kill pain is to be aware of it, feel it flowing in your body, and then deeply analyze it and reflect on it, just make it your research object ,find out the reason it makes you painful and even more ,why do human beings have such pain. Not only when you are in pain should you think ,but you should keep it as your daily habit . When a piece of news comes out, try to form your own opinion of the news instead of spending long time reading the comments on the internet. With attitudes towards life formed in your mind, you have just built yourself a great wall which defend you from being affected by the outside .Descartes said ,I think therefore I am ,always think rationally and deeply ,you can be more transparent and less painful.
Also ,making peace with yourself by acknowledging your limitations and shortcomings. Face the things you think is evil in your spirit directly. Human’s suffering comes from their desire and the things they avoid being. Not allowing oneself to be dark, not allowing life to be complex contributes to most of the psychological problems. To see what on earth we are avoiding is very difficult, even very painful. But only in this way can we see the source of the voices that are constantly questioning and blocking us. Break the useless lock and explore yourself, define yourself, choose yourself. Only in this way can we be "people" in the true sense. It is better to be a gentle beast than "useless innocence".So, "live in your truth, live in the truth of life."
I wanna talk to my peers: We live in the best of times ,also worst of times. Big changes and rapid development are the theme of the age .We are the generation born with the elder’s hope, we stand for a new millennium .What we are holding is the responsibility of our age. The age and the individual will inevitably have conflict, but actually we have different choices to choose when we meet problems. Almost every hardship can be diluted by the time .Patients having surgery always feel the most painful time has not come ,but actually is has passed. Life is alike .So just spare time for yourself for your heart ,the silver lining in the clouds will eventually appear.
