When Life Loses Meaning for Our Young: Healthy Competition and Balance

Consider this: Every 100 minutes a teenager suicides. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among those between the ages of 14 and 25. Ten percent of US college students have admitted serious thoughts about suicide, and 7 percent have had a plan to end their lives. More than 30 thousand Americans suicide each year and five thousand of these are teenagers.

Here in my hometown of Philadelphia we mourn the recent loss of Penn football co-captain, Owen Thomas, a native of Allentown, and a student at the highly demanding Wharton School. This death is sadly reminiscent of the suicide five years ago of Penn football player, Kyle Ambrogi, a senior running back from Havertown.

Every cause of suicide is unique and excruciatingly complex. And no one but one who suffers enough to consider taking his or her own life can begin to explain the personal abyss that leads to such an act of hopelessness.

However, there is one general theme in our society that I am told again and again by the young clients I work with which contributes to a\their feelings of doom and hopelessness. This theme is the obsessive need to Compete, which is sadly seen as synonymous with Winning.....with being Crowned as Number One.

Some examples: the 20-year-old Ivy League student turned down by the campus sorority of her choice, where all the "beautiful winners" are, and who came to my office labeling herself a "complete looser and misfit;" the seventeen-year old prodigy who arrived at college to find that there were others with even more brainpower than his own, and who told me, "I am a nothing if I am not number one;" and the struggling student "ashamed to admit" that he needs help. Why? "Because in this world, not being the best means you are trash."

Consider also the 23-year-old grad student who explains: "To this day my Mom brags that I spoke earlier than any of her friend's kids, and my Dad brags that I was adding by age three. I cannot remember one moment in my life where I was told it was OK to just relax. I drink and use drugs to turn my brain off for just a few hours of peace. Without these crutches, I can never stop pushing myself to work, work, work. My anxieties about doing it all and being it all are endless and relentless."

Again and again in my hours with college and grad students I learn of families who stressed excellence in achievement above all else. "Even when my parents went out with friends, they only cared about those who could help them advance and feel important," explained one distraught, overwhelmed grad student. "So I am not attracted to people who are just decent and kind. I only want 'important' people in my life. I am a horrible snob, and I hate myself for it."

Again and again I meet students who were programmed to extremes with lessons, classes and parental determination to be the best (as they defined it) at all times. Free time to think, to be, to rest, to decompress, to just relax and have fun, was never part of their lives.

This is a horrific mistake. All young people need to learn about balance in life, and their most crucial teachers are parents, teachers and family members who not only speak about, but demonstrate the importance of SelfCare, of balance of academic, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual expressions and fulfillment in how they live.

At Baltimore's Goucher College, where I am a trustee, the concept of Balance, and the understanding of the dangers of student stress when balance is not achieved is a vital part of the community. To demonstrate this commitment, on April 24th, during Alumnae/i Weekend, a permanent Labyrinth was dedicated on an exquisite area of campus. While a Maze connotes unsettling challenges in knowing how to walk and exit to freedom (which we all surely know about in life!), the path of a Labyrinth, combining myriad ancient human symbols, including the circle, spiral and meander, is one without tricks and hazards. The quiet and peaceful journey of the Labyrinth represents the journey inward to one's true self and back again into the everyday world.

What does all of this talk of Balance have to do with the stress of Competition, the notion drummed into our kids' heads from Minute One in their lives that they have to be the Best, the First, the Greatest? Here's what! There is only one kind of healthy Competition. It is a determination to do our very best, and learn from our mistakes without gauging achievements by how others are doing.....without feeling "less than" when another achieves differently (seemingly more) than we do. Our young people can best believe in themselves when they learn that life is a journey with twists and turns and that when one does one's best, cares well for oneself, and accepts that mistakes and failures are part of life, the journey in the long run will bring deep satisfaction and fulfillment.

Without this understanding, and the important of Balance and Contemplation in a life of meaning and substance, our kids are in the gravest dangers of Burning Out before they even have a chance to begin to live.

 

 

 

Follow SaraKay Smullens on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SaraKay1710

Comments

[N1512]

11:56 PM on 04/29/2010

SaraKay points out the stresses that young people feel today that push them to desperate acts such as suicide. Children are not allowed to just play anymore. Unless they are engaged in "productive" activities, parents feel as though they are short changing their offspring. Let them have simple unstructured time, and it will be much easier for them to relax as adults. One does not have to be perfect and productive every waking minute!

[SaraKay Smullens]

04:52 AM on 04/30/2010

Wouldn't it be wonderful, N1512, if little ones once again could have real childhoods? If they were allowed this simple pleasure, and encouraged then at age appropriate times to learn for the joy and excitement of it, they would have a better chance to grow into their teen years with far more confidence.

Thanks for writing.
Sarakay

[degenerate1991]

07:46 PM on 04/29/2010

As a college student, I'd say that "meaningless" is a pretty accurate description of my life.

It feels meaningless to me because there is no end to it all, no purpose. I am doing relatively well in college, but have no idea what I want to do. I am confident that, one way or another, my life will turn out okay, but that I'll never have anyone to share it with. There is this this corrosive uncertainty and emptiness about it all, and I fear that I will never find an end to that. I don't want to die, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't have any reason to live either. Perhaps it is just my own personal failings, or perhaps my fears are representative of my generation. If it is the latter, it is easy to understand how it is easy for many to fall into suicidal thoughts, given some sort of severe stressor, such as perhaps actually failing. There is the pressure to "succeed" within my family, but I have thus far been able to fulfil those expectations with relative ease. I can imagine the anguish of those for whom this is not the case.

[SaraKay Smullens]

11:30 PM on 04/29/2010

I appreciate your honest comments, and I see that you are thinking very hard about this time in your life. The belief that finding another to share with may be impossible is one that is very common at your time in life. But I do suggest you talk with a school counselor about finding your life meaningless. Some time talking can lead to more direction for you. One who can describe things as clearly and astutely as you is so capable of finding a great deal of meaning once you begin to sort things out. Does this approach make sense to you? Let me know.......
And thanks for writing, SaraKay;

[degenerate1991]

02:23 PM on 04/30/2010

I appreciate the reply, and yes it does make sense. Does that mean I'm going to do it? probably not; I have a largely irrational aversion to counsellors, and, besides, the year will be over and I back "home" in less than a week. It'll be good to get back to work (note to self: make absolutely sure to procure employment at school next year).

[Alal]

11:38 PM on 04/29/2010

Studying meditation, yoga, mindfulness, being of service are the only things that I can find that fill up that bottomless hole. It's an inside job. Thank you for your post, you just reminded me that nothing outside of me will make me feel fulfilled; they always change and fall away. Wish I had known, realized or heard this when I was in college.

[SaraKay Smullens]

11:53 PM on 04/29/2010

Dear Alal,
I am glad that this post spoke to you, and confirmed truths expressed by others who have commented. I so agree about the work we each must do on our inner selves. Doing so allows true connection in so many ways in the outside world, and this appreciation and connection brings heightened fulfillment.

Thank you for writing......
SaraKay

[sandalwood]

04:29 PM on 04/29/2010

I like the classical Indian approach to a balanced life, which is considered to have 4 aims.

Dharma: Virtue
Artha: Worldly success
Kama: Enjoyment, pleasure
Moksha: Enlightenment

In the modern West, Moksha is usually not even on the map... this makes external achievements that much more vital, in a unbalanced way.

[yogini4]

05:46 PM on 04/29/2010

Yes, sandlwood. I do too. We do not consider what such an unbalanced approach to life does to us physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. It would be good to teach Westerners about the three gunas:
Tamas: sloth, inertia
Rajas: restless activity
Sattva: balance

It is only from sattva we can get to enlightenment. We are a highly rajasic society. As Swami Vivekeneanda put it," To be a yogi, you cannot work too much (rajas) or too little (tamas)."
This emphasis on competition is a kind of insanity.

[sandalwood]

06:59 PM on 04/29/2010

Yes, beyond a fun kind of competitiveness, it is a kind of insanity. As a Yogini, you would know that until someone is taught to breathe from their low belly, low back and perineum, rather than sucking air in through a closed throat and chest, it is difficult to even have a deep and useful conversation. Lots of things need to be taught, and could be taught in our schools from day 1... hopefully we will live to see that, and help to bring it about.

[degenerate1991]

06:42 PM on 04/29/2010

Ironic, given that Indian families with high school/college kids push them harder than pretty much anyone.

[sandalwood]

06:56 PM on 04/29/2010

Yes, ironic and tragic. I heard somewhere that wisdom sometimes exists in seed form, and sometimes it flowers. It is in seed form right now.