Page 15 - My FlipBook

and really anxious by the expectation that you should now,
instinctively, know what you want or where you are supposed to go.
In the words of an eighteen-year-old I recently spoke to, “I mean, I
only know what I know. You know?”

Since the first edition of Undecided, I’ve worked with many students
who feel stressed and unhappy because they just don’t know what
they want, and they don’t want to disappoint their parents. I’ve
talked to even more parents who are desperately afraid that one
misstep on the path to adulthood might doom their child to a
miserable life. The pressure is palpable. When so much is unknown,
it triggers a fear response that can become chronic. Anxiety can
make itself known in many unpleasant forms including persistent
feelings of dread, nervousness and the jitters, frequent panic attacks,
headaches, stomach problems, shortness of breath, and fatigue. And
it can be absolutely debilitating.

Young people are currently facing a plague of anxiety (and
depression and other mental health challenges). In a 2019 Pew
survey, 70 percent of teens said anxiety is a major problem among
their friends and 26 percent say it’s a minor problem. It gets worse
among college kids, where 75 percent report overwhelming
anxiety, as reported by the 2019 National College Health
Assessment. Much of this anxiety is related to grades, pressure
to perform academically and athletically, and on social media,
which acts like a cancer eating away at self-esteem. There is also
the kind of meta-anxiety we are all facing these days that revolves
around outsized fears of global pandemic, mass shootings, climate
catastrophe, and a sense of world events spinning out of control.

part one: you are here 27