Teenage Depression

Comment: The number of teenagers suffering from depression in the US has risen to over 11%, yet these young people rarely consult their doctors (Healthline.com and Mental Health America).

Answer: These teenagers don’t understand that they suffer fromdepression and believe that it is the way of starting life.

Comment: They say that that there are three major symptoms of depression: The first is a sharp decline in academic achievements and in activities they were successful in previously, such as studies, music, etc. Second, changes in food consumption: A person may either overeat or totally lose his appetite, and Third, an inability to concentrate on a concretely on a specific activity and the desire to be alone. Teenagers at the ages or 12-17 are especially inclined to do so (Mental Health America and National Institute of Mental Health).

Answer: Young people this age begin to look for meaning in life, “I am starting my life, what should I engage in?” Then they realize that there is nothing to engage in. Not too long ago physicists, poets, musicians, mathematicians, astronauts, and navy captains were respected. There was romanticism then, whereas today all people care about is money. It is only natural that any form of bravery, achievement, and romanticism has lost its meaning.

Young people today don’t know what is the ideal for which to live or to suffer, and after all, these are years in which a person wants to make an effort to achieve a certain sublime goal since he thus develops his self-respect and is proud of belonging to something that is sublime and special. In the past youth dreamed about heroic acts and even the hippies followed the idea of purity, but now all this is gone.

It seemed that young people could have everything since traveling to India today is like going to visit one’s grandma in the nearby town, but the question is “where should I go and for what if I already know what is there?” Therefore they have nothing to aspire for, no sublime goals, and no meaning in life. I cannot imagine how one can live this way.

When I was young I was torn between different choices of what I should be. We had many options, while today this need remains deep inside and is immediately extinguished because there is nothing to aspire to. Consequently, a person feels greatly disappointed by the fact that there is a great need, a great tension, a great internal desire, and on the other hand, he develops feelings of emptiness and disrespect to what he sees in life.

There is nothing one can desire, nothing to make an effort for. Where are the sleepless nights? Where is the search? There is nothing. This is the reason that people feel lost. As teenagers, they cannot understand or know which way to go, whether to study economics in order to make money or to study a certain field of science and then live on the crumbs that the rich throw them. They cannot dream, they have not been intrigued, they have not been led forward, and nothing interests them.

Question: What will happen then?

Answer: They will feel so greatly disappointed that they will want to destroy the world that doesn’t promise them anything but simply forces them to live. This is the reason that there is a growing rate of suicide and the growing popularity of escape to ISIS and other terrorist organizations. People consume more drugs and engage in crazy games on the Internet just to take their minds off their situation and to be busy with something. It is a lost generation. We have nothing to offer them and they have nothing to offer themselves. We are basically living by the law of inertia.

Question: But can we offer them any way out?

Answer: There is only one way out. We are intentionally in this condition, we have reached the final phase of our development and there is only one thing left for us to do: to unite in order to reach the next level of our evolution. There new unlimited dimensions will open up for us, unlimited fillings, daring, romanticism, and everything!

Our job is to bring the youth to this path of development. Their disappointment has ripened, and despite the negativity, they have an inner need. We have to develop the right approach in order to encourage them to this romanticism, to the specialattainment and to the revelation of the world. It isn’t about the revelation of certain swamps, forests, or even outer space in order to orbit the earth, but about a totally new world, a world we can ascend to, live in, and develop ourselves in a different direction, in different forms and attributes, to create, to dare, to be like gods.

This is what we can offer young people, but we have to find the right way to approach them and offer it to them. The problem is only in the first encounter with them. We have to find the right way. So don’t wait, we have to start now.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/18/16