"These are the best years of your life"

People say this in movies a lot, but it seems to be the perfectly engineered worst statement to say to an angsty teen.

Comments

  • whereas it is exactly what dissatisfied adults want to hear
  • Splat Charger Specialist
    It's funny how those two categories intersect so seldomly.
  • For once, or maybe twice, I was in my prime.

    These are the best days of our lives
    Crazy as it seems
  • BeeBee
    edited 2015-11-15 05:52:29
    Well, given that the entire economy and legislature right now seems to be hell-bent on making your adult life suck as much as possible, it's probably true.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    my dad used to tell me that childhood was the best time of one's life

    evidently he didn't want me to become too optimistic
  • High school sucks, college is better
  • tbh my early 20s have owned pretty hard and being a teenager sucks, so
  • the best time of your life is all the time you spend on a leash
  • Acererak said:

    High school sucks, college is better

    I haven't been in college long enough to make a full judgment but for the short time I've been here that has absolutely been the case.

    Kinda nice, really.
  • The difference between a cage and a labyrinth

    You're trapped either way, but in the second one, you get a ball of yarn!

    Truly, you can now be the best cat you can be
  • But there's usually a minotaur in the second one
  • Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.

    Acererak said:

    High school sucks, college is better

    High school sucks, college sucks in a much better way
    and then grad school sucks in its own unique way
  • Splat Charger Specialist
    If high school is a cage, then college is a wild animal park. You're still trapped but you've got enough freedom that you don't mind it as much.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    I just kinda hate living.
  • At least in the animal park you get to talk to your peers. The Sea of Strangers that is real life and jobs and shit is scary as hell 
  • ...you know what? I'm tired of this.

    Like, I get that we (yes, we - I do this a lot too) need a place to vent, but this grim outlook on life is just...I don't know, I'm not entirely comfortable with it anymore. I'm not saying that we should be Fahrenheit 451 characters, but being constantly bleak and hopeless just seems...rather tiring.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    I tried to make a thread about bad advice in media, and everyone instantly decided to tell me it was completely right and that life is hell.
  • edited 2015-11-17 18:26:35
    Munch munch, chomp chomp...
    Acererak said:

    ...you know what? I'm tired of this.


    Like, I get that we (yes, we - I do this a lot too) need a place to vent, but this grim outlook on life is just...I don't know, I'm not entirely comfortable with it anymore. I'm not saying that we should be Fahrenheit 451 characters, but being constantly bleak and hopeless just seems...rather tiring.
    I think you're somewhat extrapolating from some vocal and/or active people here, or seeing certain stuff as more intense than is meant (e.g. I at least don't know what makes Zeico say what they did).

    It's also worth keeping in mind a lot of folks on this forum are diagnosed with some form of depression, sometimes alongside other ailments.

    ^ Huh?
  • kill living beings
    well, I've heard it irl
  • My dreams exceed my real life

    whereas it is exactly what dissatisfied adults want to hear

    Bee said:

    Well, given that the entire economy and legislature right now seems to be hell-bent on making your adult life suck as much as possible, it's probably true.


  • I didn't mean to say that it was right

    I just meant that the people writing are dissatisfied adults who are trying to write at their past selves as opposed to writing for actual teens now
  • because they don't remember what it was like to be a teen
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    i have also heard it irl, more than once

    i distinctly remember a school assembly where the headmaster talked at length in that vein

    obviously personal experiences will vary, my childhood wasn't much fun and i definitely preferred university, but blah blah subjectivity

    i don't know why you would say this to an angsty teen, because it doesn't seem like a helpful or tactful sentiment, but it's not something exclusive to fiction
  • I should have been more clear about it but I didn't think that it could be read that way
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    i got what you meant, naney, but the subsequent discussion drifted
  • I was clarifying because I thought odradek misunderstood based on his quoting my post there

    that's all
  • Crystal said:

    Acererak said:

    ...you know what? I'm tired of this.


    Like, I get that we (yes, we - I do this a lot too) need a place to vent, but this grim outlook on life is just...I don't know, I'm not entirely comfortable with it anymore. I'm not saying that we should be Fahrenheit 451 characters, but being constantly bleak and hopeless just seems...rather tiring.
    I think you're somewhat extrapolating from some vocal and/or active people here, or seeing certain stuff as more intense than is meant (e.g. I at least don't know what makes Zeico say what they did).

    It's also worth keeping in mind a lot of folks on this forum are diagnosed with some form of depression, sometimes alongside other ailments.

    ^ Huh?
    I'm diagnosed with depression too, and what strikes me about these things is that these are the views I had while it was untreated. And that strikes me as worthy of commentary because I no longer see this ultra-negative perspective on life as completely valid.
  • and I would go so far as to extend "adults not remembering what it was like to be a kid" as the reason for almost all bad advice given to teenagers
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    most of these posts don't seem all that grim though?

    ('bleak and hopeless' is kinda what i fall back on when optimism feels too exhausting to be worth the trouble, so ymmv on it being tiring, i guess)
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch

    and I would go so far as to extend "adults not remembering what it was like to be a kid" as the reason for almost all bad advice given to teenagers

    this is a good point

    but in the case of the sentiment in the thread title, i'm not really sure how it can be intended as good advice

    'think this is bad?  it's only getting worse'

    seems like the kind of thing you'd say to get kids/teens to stop whining, rather than something meant to actually help at all
  • Maybe I'm just a little (physically) tired, I'm pulling an all-nighter. Maybe some of this is an overreaction.
  • it's intended to get them to appreciate their teenagerhood more while they still have it
  • edited 2015-11-17 19:14:10
    Yeah, because by then they've forgotten all the peer evaluation and shitty hormones that will FUCK YOUR SHIT even if you've hit the genetic jackpot. 

    Terrible authority figures are pretty constant though
  • I definitely prefer being an adult to being a teen so far

    though I think a substantial portion of that was losing 50 lbs

    losing weight just makes everything better
  • not just because of the looking better thing, but because it nurtured within me a greater sense of personal agency
  • Munch munch, chomp chomp...
    Acererak said:

    Crystal said:

    Acererak said:

    ...you know what? I'm tired of this.


    Like, I get that we (yes, we - I do this a lot too) need a place to vent, but this grim outlook on life is just...I don't know, I'm not entirely comfortable with it anymore. I'm not saying that we should be Fahrenheit 451 characters, but being constantly bleak and hopeless just seems...rather tiring.
    I think you're somewhat extrapolating from some vocal and/or active people here, or seeing certain stuff as more intense than is meant (e.g. I at least don't know what makes Zeico say what they did).

    It's also worth keeping in mind a lot of folks on this forum are diagnosed with some form of depression, sometimes alongside other ailments.

    ^ Huh?
    I'm diagnosed with depression too, and what strikes me about these things is that these are the views I had while it was untreated. And that strikes me as worthy of commentary because I no longer see this ultra-negative perspective on life as completely valid.
    Sure, if I could buy the typical, or overall sentiment as bleak and grim, which I can't much like Tach. Like, not overbearingly positive and/or some cynicism, or other stuff sure, but not that. And faulting stuff like that seems a bit weird to me.
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    adulthood is definitely better than being a teenager because I have a driver's license
  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
    The challenges of what it is to be an adolescent are always different, each incarnation bearing its own challenges and sorrows, and each one is valid in its own way.

    But as things are now, nobody's adolescence is ever going to be the best years of someone's life, with very few exceptions.
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