Don't Take It Personally, It Happens to Everyone

Angst, which is defined as a feeling of anxiety about your life or situation, can be easily linked to teenagers, as it is a time in a person’s life where changes are most prominent and the decisions made are the most important. With all the stress that comes along with these decisions that occur during this period of life, it is no surprise that some or even many teens have to cope with anxiety every day.

Dealing with angst is not the easiest thing for most people and a lot of times people have to overcome a lot just to bear it. However, many people don’t realize that anxiety is a normal human emotion so they overestimate the impact that it has on their own life. The impacts are actually rather small and anxiety can be easily disengaged. By taking a few long, deep and gentle breaths, through the nose and out the mouth, a person can slow their heart rate and forget about all the anxiety they had felt earlier.

However, if a person doesn't know this yet, and a lot of people don't, it may be very hard for them to make many decisions. The decisions that I am talking about, which are made by teenagers, may be very large such as choosing the university you want to attend or even just choose the program that you want to study in university. But they also may be very small like deciding what to wear downtown on Saturday night or even handing out a resume. In today’s society, social pressures surround us and make us conform to many social norms and we as teenagers, who do make poor decisions from time to time, must deal with situations that we are not comfortable with. As we are forced into these situations, we ‘learn the hard way’ of how to make better decisions and to cope with any bad decisions that we make.

Angst and especially teen angst will always be present in the lives of human beings. It is a live and learn experience that everyone must go through. That is why angst is such a defining feature in the coming-of-age process for adolescents. Because if they didn’t experience angst as a teen, they wouldn’t be prepared for any little anxiety life throws at them when they are grown adults.