A Generation Z Guide: 25 Lessons Learned by 20

Born on the brink of a century, Generation Z is more “anxious, distrustful and downright miserable” than previous generations.  We grew up through the 9/11 era, too young to understand the threat of foreign and domestic terror we’d live under, the Orwellian era of “Big Brother” we were being raised in, the adapting to catastrophic climate change we’ll have to endure through the hottest global temperatures recent history, under a difficult job-market with living-wage hard to come by, and college tuition at an all-time high. We were raised knowing nothing but a post-internet world, with knowledge at the touch of our fingers.

Depression and suicide rates have skyrocketed since 2011 among teens, being one of the “worst mental-health crisis in decades.”  Not being able to enjoy the high living-wages, job availability, low college tuition, and high purchasing power of previous generations, Gen Z  is left feeling “more psychologically vulnerable than millennials were”. With these struggles impacting “their self-worth, automatically making them question their ability to do things.”

As someone is all too familiar with this profile, 19-going-on-my-20th existential crisis in a week, I’ve gone on a self-help journey this past year and a half and these have been some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. This one goes out to everyone feeling lost, empty, numb with the weight of the world, and with a mind who’s your worst enemy.  For anyone who viscerally hates birthdays. This guide will hopefully impart you with at least one piece of helpful advice from someone who’s been through it. I know I needed to hear these things when I clawed my way out of rock bottom while putting on a normal face for the world. Through a resistant growing phase, crippling self-doubt, uncertainty, and giant mistakes.

1. If you protect yourself from getting hurt, you protect yourself from happiness. If you protect yourself from failure, you protect yourself from achieving your dreams. Humanity’s capacity for self-preservation drives us to seek shelter and comfort. A wounded animal retreats in isolation to prevent itself from getting hurt again. However, many of us will prolong this process — over the years we’ll stop taking risks, stop taking the leaps necessary to bring us closer to our goals. We give up our plans and settle into our comfortable domesticity — until one day, we look back at a life full of “what if’s.” There can be no happiness without putting yourself in vulnerable positions of uncertainty, no success without failure along the way. Anyone who’s anyone traversed through the tough terrain and took leaps of faith to reach the top, while others who let their failures overcome them, got left behind. Go forth and trailblaze, open that business, send out that portfolio, apply for that internship, follow your passion, sacrifice your qualms for the unconventional dreams.

 

2. Growth: Out of vulnerability comes progress. Growth and progressive achievement only stems by pushing your comfort zone’s boundaries. The best things in life start at the end of your comfort zone. If you want something you’ve never had you’ve got to do something you’ve never done. Never become complacent — if you follow the herd you’ll never go beyond it

 

3. Fear and Courage: All you need is courage, not confidence. Stay fearful, and do it anyway – that is how we grow. Motivational gurus will have us believe that you need an insurmountable amount of confidence before you do anything towards achieving your goals,  but I’m here to proclaim that it’s a lie. The proudest moments in my life have been when I tackled something bigger than I thought I was worthy of, when I was scared but did it anyway. Your goals must be more important than your temporary feelings. Life is on the other side of fear. Your belief that what you can do can change things for the better, greater than your temporary fear. If nothing, changes, nothing changes.

 

4. The Collective Adulting Fear of Inadequacy: Exceptionalism is a false idol, only the hunger of ‘average’ leads to noteworthiness. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Stop comparing yourself to someone else’s timeline — or feed. 63% of Instagram users report being miserable. The media’s endless flood of images of the best of the best has society believing exceptionalism is the new normal, and if you’re not like the beautiful, successful people airing their exotic travels out on Instagram by the time you’re 25, there’s something wrong with you.

When looking at others’ highlight reel you fail to see that excellence is only cultivated hard work. Most of these people are not born exceptional yet they do exceptional things through an obsession with improvement and practice.

If you’re a teenager or young adult, relax — it does not matter how fast you go, as long as you do not stop at every inconvenience, you will eventually reach your destination.

 

5. The False Pursuit of Ephemeral Happiness: Happiness isn’t a goal or a choice, it’s the side effect of a life of problem-solving. Don’t fret over negative feelings. Our culture has ingrained in us that happiness should be our ultimate goal. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Happy,” Timmy answered, and everybody clapped. Anything less stresses us out making us feel abnormal. We pay too much mind about achieving a side-effect when we really should be learning to deal with negative feelings and what they’re telling us to change about our lives. Psychological pain is a necessary evolutionary evil telling us what needs to change.

Despite our higher standards of living, stress-related mental illness has increased tremendously. Our culture has bred a generation of people who ruminate over any slight, or bump in the road — we’re less resilient, less able to deal with negative emotions that flood our brains. Young people are living through an existential crisis.

Life is an endless domino chain of problems — have to learn to care about the right ones and not sulk in them but overcome them. That’s right — solve them, don’t victimize yourself, deny them, or drown them out with vices. You won’t be any happier or mentally healthier than you were before drowning your sorrows, maxing out your credit, or binging Netflix.  Avoiding problems will only make you miserable. Happiness is a work-in-progress action, not a feeling bestowed on you randomly.

 

6. Anxiety and Developing True Confidence Internally: You are not the subject of others’ lives. If you know who you are you will not be harmed by what is said about you. I couldn’t put a name on the onus I carried as a child but I was too nervous to eat my lunch in front of other kids in first grade, too nervous to insert myself into group projects. Anxiety loomed over my every move convincing me everything I did was weird and inherently wrong and people would notice and spite me for it. It carried with me through the beginning of high school but not for long. This hyper-self-aware, false narrator is one that I overcame. How?

• Focus on an external passion to base your worth on: My anxiety wasn’t fueled externally, I never even grew up basing my worth on appearance, comparing myself to Barbie or magazines — I was too busy admiring the artistry of haute couture in magazines and sketching fashion designs. It was internal – a false narrator only we have the power to quiet through cognitive behavior therapy. I developed confidence through academic pursuits and my love of math, reading, and the arts. This helped tremendously, giving me just the right amount of encouragement to believe in myself and be bold in my school work. Although it anxiety still irrationally remained: I never based my worth on external validation because my idea of value was based on the caliber of my work, the merit of my actions, not fleeting self-image. The greatest historical figures didn’t immortalize their name with beauty but a weaponized brain or talent.

 

• Know Thyself In and Out: If you know who you are you will not be harmed by what is said about you. Take a self-discovery journey and find your passions, your hobbies, your taste in music, fashion, books, even your taste in friends. Once you do this, no one can make you feel inferior for not subscribing to their personal standards.
• Stop Seeking Validation from People You Don’t Like and Be Unapologetically yourself: If you develop a strong sense of self then you won’t be harmed by those who aren’t on your wavelength. ‘A lion does not lose sleep over the opinion of  sheep,’  and all that. (A healthy dose of false arrogance does wonders.) It got to a point for me in high school were I was no longer affected by compliments or rare disparaging comments from those on a different wavelength than me, only by those I admired. In fact, once I accepted myself others did too. I had more friends, and random positivity surrounded me because people acknowledged I was being authentic and staying in my lane and they complimented me for it.
• Treat yourself how you want to be treated. Treat yourself with the kindness you’d treat a friend. You set the standard for how others approach you. You’d defend a friend if they were insulted — coming up with a myriad of reasons why the insult is wrong, so why do you treat yourself any different? Stop negative thoughts in their tracks and practice mindfulness, argue with them. Easier said than done, but it works.
• Do you judge others as harshly as you judge yourself for every inane action and word? No? Neither do they. My entire high school experience proved this right as the people who I thought didn’t like me, unexpectedly complimented me and said they thought I was cool and wanted to hang out with me. This was a point in my junior year of high school were I was convinced people disliked me — they thought I was weird, odd-looking, and mean.

My social anxiety of actively inserting myself into social situations was solidified since the kindergarten days.  Until one day a stranger said hi to me randomly and while I warmly smiled at the interaction it clicked — why did I think it was weird for me to initiate conversation with strangers if I didn’t think that when it was vice-versa? I didn’t find it awkward when others initiated contact, I found it nice and welcoming. So why did I hold myself to a different view with others?

• • If you follow the herd you’ll never go beyond it.
  • Be unapologetically yourself — your light will burn bright and attract other like-minded people.
  • The sun rises even if no one bothers to look at it. Stop seeking external validation. Work on yourself and you’ll meet the right group of people eventually.
  • What’s the difference between you and those other people who’ve succeeded? The amount of work. No one is judging you, you’re a clean slate with equal potential in others’ eyes so only YOU determine how far YOU go. Don’t shy away, take command of every space you enter.
  • Adopt a certain level of detachment to free yourself from social constructs. If only you tell yourself who you are then you don’t dress for anyone else, engage in conversation for the sake of pleasantries, date for peer pressure, or hold your tongue for others’ anger.

7. Depression — There is no benefit derived from dwelling in your misery, you only end up digging a bigger depression pit. It’s a form of self-sabotage. Release your feelings, then get to problem solving. If you’re in a hole and can’t see a way out, have the dignity to stop digging.

 

8. The world reflects your attitude. Depression is a false narrator hazing your perspective. Don’t believe everything you think.  If you feel terrible, the world looks terrible – you seek out confirmation of your warped mentality and lose hope in taking any action towards self-help It’s a haze giving the world a false negative filter. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy; by blurring your vision through the prism of your negative state, you act in accordance of your negative mood thereby self-sabotaging, and people treat you in accordance of it. You are not your negative thoughts and your reality has a negative bias.

 

9. Problems: The key to a good life isn’t a lack of struggle, life is an endless cycle of struggle, but rather choosing the right problems and solving them. Problems are unavoidable in every path in life, so you have to pick your struggle. What are you willing to suffer for?  You can’t run from adversity. You can’t run from your personal problems. No matter where you go, there you are.”

 

10. Meaning and Purpose:  Anchor your life’s purpose externally. Work hard at something until your life becomes something you can’t look away from. Adopting a personal life philosophy of ‘positive liberty’ — that is, not being complacent content without doing anything productive to maintain our state of happiness, and mental freedom — is most important to those of us suffering from depression..  

As writer and Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl once said, “Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.”

I was (now looking back) a nihilist – a dangerous mentality contending that there is no meaning to life and there’s no point in creating any.  “Fun” recreational activities left me in a dissociative state, silently judging “consumerist sheep”, hedonism, bemoaning the meaningless of it all, not enjoying any hobbies, with no energy for anything. I looked out the window of my car and saw a world I didn’t belong in, with happy people living lives I would never be apart of mocking me with a reminder of the happiness I was supposed to feel but I utterly lacked. . I was empty inside with no motivation to seek a larger goal, or “create meaning.” That is until I reached rock bottom and had to choose between disappearing or getting back up. I got so restless and annoyed by myself that I set out on a mission towards significance – towards selflessness – towards contributing to society. Towards grounding my purpose externally, outside of a tumultuous mind. I became an existentialist, with a partiality towards positive liberty.

I started with the goal of productivity but ended with the outcome of finding purpose. I was burdened by circumstantial problems I thought were inherent. but when your situation doesn’t change for a long time it feels like it’s inevitable. Happiness is a byproduct of a good life, not a mentality, I thought, so no I couldn’t just be happy. So I set out to literally write down my problems and far-fetched solutions I laughed at.

Every day I would wake up resisting the urge to stay in bed all day in a depression coma, aimlessly surfing the internet. I would make an effort to accomplish at least one task towards my goal. To fulfill enriching habits: studying French, reading, painting, meditating, exercising and going to sleep earlier.  But something happened, that endorphin-releasing sense of accomplishment created an addiction – one which craved productivity. That one task snowballed into two, three, and so on. Even if I didn’t feel good about myself, or my life, I felt good about what I was doing – and that instilled hope. An object in motion will stay in motion.

I felt productive that I was being proactive about improving my life, but I didn’t feel content, the emptiness consumed me in between. I realized that my mind wouldn’t be at peace until I was doing something of significance, contributing to something external, and bettering society. Creating meaning through work – a life-long passion, or love – caring for others.

Once I found a something that anchored me here, there was no giving up. I wasn’t doing it for an unstable me anymore, but for that purpose. Volunteer, get involved in animal rescue, get a pet from a shelter if you’re an animal lover, help on a political campaign, pursue your lifelong passion as a hobby until it becomes your job. When you’re helping others you forget everything and are overcome by others’ well-being.

Your meaning must be created and that can’t happen through droning days, weeks, and months of instant-gratification.

11. Modern-relationship culture: Nobody ‘needs’ a relationship, stop actively ‘searching.’ Be happy and whole on your own before you get into one because you can’t put the responsibility of happiness on impermanent things. The only constant is yourself, if you were whole before them, you’ll be whole after them. This is why the adage of “loving yourself first” exists. Our culture try as it might, inculcates us with the idea that we need a relationship to whole, but self-actualization does not involve that. I’ve happily spent my teenage years without the pressure of getting into one for the sake of ‘normalcy’ (whatever that means). This is because I view relationships as a nice addition to your life, not a need. Too many young women are made to feel like there’s something wrong with them for choosing not to be in a relationship for the sake of it, and instead of waiting until you want somebody you’ve made a genuine connection with, not need them. If you’re not happy on your own, you also risk ruining things. Remember, the type of person you’re looking for is also looking for someone like that. What you focus on is what you attract.

 

12. Never round out your unique edges to be universally pleasant.  It’s a miserable exercise in futility. Stop seeking validation from people you don’t even like. Stop caring about offending others for doing what is right. Always speak your mind even if others don’t like it.  Being your unapologetically authentic self will attract like-minded individuals to you.  As Mr. Feeny, the memorable teacher from Boy Meets World once said, “Don’t let other people’s perceptions of you shape who you are or you’ll never grow as a person.”

 

13. The Rat Race of False Idols and Instant Gratification Will Never Earn You Happiness: Always choose long-term satisfaction over instant-gratification. Don’t fill the void with things and people. Create more than you consume. The high of an Instagram notification (sad source of validation), junk food, shopping, promiscuity, drugs, and TV binging are no more than shallow escapism from your problems and solutions. Our consumerist society thrives on selling us the idea that getting the newest status symbol — x shoes that look like socks but go for $1,000, over-inflated bag tenfold the price of a similar leather counterpart, and trendy car will make you achieve the mythical dream of happiness. Thus, plebeians are kept in the rat wheel of comfortable domesticity searching for the next ‘high’ once the shiny novelty of x thing wears off until we lose all sense of purpose but self-gratification in our late-capitalist hellscape. Instant-gratification is a band-aid solution, stop numbing whatever void you’re trying to fill. People who delay gratification longer are healthier, academically successful, and financially stable.

 

14. Passion: ”More dreams are ruined by doubt than failure — don’t be afraid to go for the unconventional career. Don’t pursue a conventional career you have no interest in fear of financial stability — that’s where the competition will be the fiercest and you won’t make it. If you follow your passion, you’ll naturally work harder and therefore will eventually reach financial stability.

Your passion is what you do for the fun of it with no regard for the outcome or if anyone is paying attention. Eventually, people will and it will feel great to have validation for the first time, for something you never did out of the entitlement of a reward.

I made the mistake of pursuing a career path I had zero interest in my freshman year, convinced I could fake my way through even dental school and achieve happiness through a lucrative career — one that I cringed at the thought of waking up to every morning in the future. Not only did I fall back against the competition of my classmates’ organic chem grades, but I was absolutely miserable. Why? Because law, politics, and writing were calling my name while I was engrossed in monochlorination. I was molding myself into a box I didn’t fit in and therefore wasn’t naturally motivated at. Combine a healthy balance of idealism with pragmatism when choosing a career. That is, if you actually want a job upon graduation, choose the most practical major employed in your career path of choice and combine it with plenty of internship experience and supporting hobbies. Also, don’t conflate your interest in theory with the actual application of it in a job. Think about a career you’d like and what would provide tangible skills applicable to it.

How do you find it? Your passion is that thought on the back of your mind when you’re not doing it, the thing that makes you forget to eat.. It’s what you do for the fun of it with no regard for the outcome or if anyone is paying attention. Eventually, people will and it will feel great to have validation for the first time, for something you never did out of the entitlement of a reward.

 

15. Personal Responsibility: You are your only problem and your only solution. Taking responsibility for every aspect in your life makes you an unstoppable force because then you don’t see yourself and result of your actions as pawns to a nebulous destiny. Be a product of your decisions and not your circumstances. Independence has been an inherent part of my character since I first held my own bottle at two months, learned languages on my own, started my own business at 15, and got into college by myself, but I still dwelled over every obstacle finding little motivation to continue after being knocked down.

The key to getting everything you want out of life and being happy is problem-solving. But many of us choose to see ourselves as helpless vessels in destiny’s path, blaming others for our problems and feeling like there’s no hope. You can progress by killing your victim complex. Victim complexes make  you view every struggle as an injustice, and challenge as a failure. In reality, the world is not out to get you, you are autonomous and your problems are not uniquely egregious. Failure doesn’t mean the world is out to get you, it’s part of the unpaved journey towards success. Go forth, and grab life by the horns, embracing the flaws of the present. Don’t let problems overwhelm you to the point where you can’t make small changes. No one will do for you what you won’t do for yourself.

“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.”

“You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust the sails.”

 

16. Procrastination: Perfect is the enemy of done. Procrastination isn’t laziness, it’s the paralyzing fear of failure, of not being perfect.  We put off tasks that threaten our high standards in fear of not living up to them, waiting for the right conditions our whole lives.  I put off applying for short story contest because the possibility of failure threatens my identity as a writer.

It’s only until there’s too much as stake that we spring into action – whether that be through tight time constraints or a feeling of restlessness. Procrastinators reach rock bottom before they’re motivated.

The natural solution then is to not build tasks up, to be ok with a bad first draft, to attaching our identities to perfection and being the best. The road to success is paved with failure, and we can only reach the end by not being afraid to be bad initially. Done is better than perfect. Doubt kills more dreams than failure.

 

17. Perseverance and Failure: The road to success is paved with failure, only those who persevere make it to the end. Before you get good and do something significant, you must first have the courage to be bad and learn. You won’t ever excel at anything if you’re afraid of being bad. Behind every story of success is someone who overcame their failures and roadblocks, while less resilient people equally as passionate got left behind. Failure is required for success, no self-made person starts off benching 200 pounds, with a Pulitzer, with their own display at an art gallery, or success company.  Deficiencies drove those at the apex of every field to achieve — they started looking completely out of place.

The problem is, most of us lack the resilience necessary to persevere — once something doesn’t measure up to our specific high standards, we give up. We’ve got to learn to accept the learning curve, to accept the gap between our personal taste and our beginner abilities. Only practice, failure, then some more practice can bridge the gap.

An object in motion will remain in motion until stopped by unbalanced force. A mentally resilient person will remain in motion.

 

18. Our goals should be fueled by our love for the process, not the idealized outcome. If not we won’t achieve them. Because if you want something you will find a way, if not you’ll find an excuse. You have to really ask yourself if you have the right and strong motivations behind your goals, those motivations are the ones that will push you through the failures and obstacles. You won’t become a professional writer if you aren’t willing to have your work rejected, a doctor if you can’t handle long, odd hours standing on your feet. This goes back to picking the right ‘struggle’ — a passion you’re willing to handle challenges for.

• I wasn’t in love with painting, I was in love with the idea of calling myself an oil painter. So as soon as I proved myself that I could draw, I could paint, I quit out of boredom. If you find yourself quitting easily you never really loved it in the first place. If you love something, you’ll find a way, if not you’ll find an excuse.

19. Suffering isn’t eternal. Honor loss through action, not eternal dwelling. I’m a very emotionally intelligent person, meaning I feel deeply and sympathize a with for others. This has many times in life caused me great sorrow, but I know that prolonging my grief will only make me spiral into a pit of depression. So release your feelings,, have a cathartic breakdown ignoring everyone around you until you have no tears left to cry, but only for a set period of time, then lift yourself off the ground. If it’s something personal, make an action plan, if it’s something external, make a plan to honor whatever happened. Many times the most important voices in our society calling for action are those who have experienced loss. The pain will linger but let it fuel you into constructive actions not destructive. Don’t make pain make you feel like you have to remain in permanent negativity and bondage to it out of ‘respect.’

It doesn’t get easier, you get better. Whenever you feel like giving up remember all the times you’ve felt that way before.

 

20. Key to Success: Hard-work, discipline, and resilience are more important than intelligence when it comes to success. Which is why the world’s intellectuals don’t rule the world. Average people are more likely to act instead of overthinking, and not underestimate their abilities, therefore, taking more leaps of courage in their lives. Passion alone isn’t enough either. Work-ethic is the only thing separating you from a successful person. You are a blank slate in other’s eyes full of equal potential; you determine how far you go. You have to reprogram your mentality through these tips:

• Do or do not. There is no try. “Try is accepting the possibility of failure.
• There is no substitute for practice.
• Create more than you consume.
• Learn to network and market yourself. A tough one for us introverts — requires great acting.
• Prove yourself.  “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Legacies aren’t built on unfulfilled ideas and dreams.
• Don’t complain if you’re not gonna do anything to remedy it.
• Need creates drive. You have to need it. This is why those come from nothing often have the drive to pull themselves up that other jaded Americans don’t
• Easy won’t be worth it, worth it won’t be easy
• Believe in your power. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.

21. Motivation: Action precedes motivation.”Never give up on a goal just because reaching it takes time. Time will pass anyway.” Hard does not mean impossible, it means you need willpower. You need discipline and hard work, stop waiting for motivation that may never come at the right time.

• • Diminishing willpower: “Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning.” Our willpower fuel is limited.
  • Ask yourself, ‘why not me?”People who accomplish great things are not born great, they’re people who believed in themselves and cultivated hard-work. No one is rooting against you, you’re a blank slate with equal potential to shine in other’s eyes.
  • Write down things you used to think were impossible but you achieved anyway.  This will give you a confidence boost necessary to convince yourself it’s possible and you have the tools to achieve it.
  • Discipline now instead of regret later. By not doing this what is that gonna cost me in life? Link pain to not doing it.
  • Build task down, not up. Lower your expectation for immediate goals – complete smaller tasks to get the ball rolling.
  • Do not fill the void with escapism or vices – the world will still be there when you put your drink down or turn off the tv. FOCUS ON SELF-ACTUALIZATION
  • Remember the motivations behind your goals. Remind yourself of what this direct action will build to.
  • Don’t let one bad day snowball and serve as negative confirmation of your notions. Get back up and start fresh without being dragged down by the past. What’s done is done.
  • Find something that holds you accountable – people more successful than you, clubs, or family. Sometimes announcing plans to the world is good.

 

22. The Power of Habit: What you think is nature, is just habit. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  As Henry David Thoreau once said, “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path , we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

The power of habits is the little willpower or thought required once they’re established. Doing something repeatedly changes your life. Habits are the driving force behind discipline — the most pivotal tool of success. But developing them won’t only help you achieve your goals, they’ll also be healthy outlets for stress, depression and anxiety.

At the start of my journey towards self-recovery, I audited my life, writing down every aspect I wished to change and the hypothetical steps I could take to get there no matter how far-fetched they seemed at the time. Part of the plan involved a morning ritual full of habits to help get me out of bed: caring for my animals, Bible study, skincare, marketing my business, 20 minutes of Duolingo, and exercise.

Then adding three habits towards my goals — reading, writin, and learning to program.

• When you feel down, you can turn to your habits and do things that make you feel like you: exercise (the ADAA considers it vital to reducing stress and maintaining mental fitness), go for a  drive and put on good music, meditate (the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that 90%  of people with clinical levels of anxiety experienced significant reductions in anxiety and depression).
• Recharge by watching something inspirational, pamper yourself, surround yourself with family and friends, write your feelings out, go outside for a walk. The point of these exercises is to temporarily break through the haze of negativity in step outside your own perspective and analyze what problem-solving steps need to be done.
• Break bad habits. Focus on your inner self by building endorphin-releasing habits and eliminating distractions and unhealthy ones. Start by halting mindless consumption, sleep deprivation, procrastination, stagnancy, and instant gratification. Ask yourself – will the escapism provided by frivolous – Twitter drama, Instagram, television show affect my life – will it change anything? No, my problems will still be there after Rory Gilmore and Dean dramatically break up after a perfect date. (I’m too guilty of indulging in prolonged escapism.)

23. Excessive Worry: You either can do something about it or you can’t, worry is a useless expenditure of energy tricking you into thinking you’re doing something to solve the problem. Use your worries sparingly, and stop caring about banal frivolities that have no impact in the grand scheme of things. Stop living by every slight, small mistake or inconvenience. Stop caring about people’s reactions, and caring about adversity in the face of goals. When you reach a goal you’ll look back and laugh at the little things you stressed over, at every person who minimized you.

24. Live and let live. Just because someone does not abide by your personal life philosophy does not make them a bad person. Have an appreciation for each person’s differences. They’re not basic, stupid, or shallow for not having your personal interests, life goals, or attitudes. If something annoys you, block it out, cut them out, don’t revel in your own annoyance. Everyone has a personal life story they don’t show, be kind.

25. Don’t label yourself. Depression, introversion, and shyness aren’t personality traits — they’re superlatives that limit your potential by locking you in a succinct little ‘box.’ Your thoughts will be controlled by these labels, and your actions will reinforce them. I spent a large portion of my adolescence being confined by these labels others had imposed on me — “I can’t do x because people will think I’m being fake, acting out of character,” etc.