Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Life Frustrations

The past few days have been very frustrating for me. In the big picture, the stuff is not that huge. The frustration comes from a plethora of areas in my life and it is the combination of it all that really gets into my head. I am a very laid back, even keeled person usually. At times though, it doesn’t matter what I do or tell myself I just get frustrated beyond belief. I have noticed that a lot of my friends are the same way or have gone through the same thing at some point, but why?

Most of my friends are young adults that come from middle-class families and are either in college or just out of college. So if an outside person were looking at a person like this they would probably think they have no real problems and should be pretty happy with life. Obviously, stereotypes are rarely if ever correct. Every situation is different in some way, but what are some of the similarities in why some of my friends go through times of depression.

My number one similarity in my theory to why my friends are depressed even though on the outside surface everything looks to be fine in their life is the middle-class up bringing. This does not make much sense at first glance. What is wrong with a middle-class up bringing? You do not have the life struggles of a poor family. You do not have the spoiling of an upper-class family. So why do the young adults from middle-class families hit a point where they are depressed and highly frustrated? Let’s look at a typical middle-call up bring first.

The typical middle-class family lives well, but not over the top. The family is concerned about looking good to the public. They try to make people believe they have a perfect family. This is where the trouble comes from in my theory. Parents will hide things about their life to make their children believe that everything is perfect. Of course, sometimes the parents have no choice, but to inform their children of these hard times. It is rare though or it is not until the children are young adults themselves. Growing up in a middle-class family you will never hear about financial troubles. Are all middle-class families that well off to never have financial hard times? I do not think that’s the case at all. Most middle-class families carry a huge sum of credit card debt. Why would these families have a lot of credit card debt? Are they not making enough money to live on? No, they spend money on things to make other people believe they have a great life. They buy cars they shouldn’t buy on their budget. They buy furniture and televisions on their credit cards to make others believe that they are really living life.

Okay, so most families have credit card debt…what is the big deal? It is not really that big of deal, but it is the fact that the families are covering up life struggles with it. Kids come from this way of life and think they should have no struggles. They get a distorted view on life. Then later in life they come to a realization point and that’s where most of the depression and frustration comes from. They expect things to work out when most of the times they do not. The patience and planning of life is very underrated. In school, you learn about planning out your life and career but rarely do they tell you of the struggles you will have to go through to meet those goals.

So, that can’t be the only reason why young adults are feeling depressed. This could turn into a thirty-page theory if I went through every possible reason. I believe some of the stress comes from parents that apply pressure, but don’t provide guidance or suggestions. They just tell you they want it fixed and expect it to be done in your life immediately. Debt is also very tough to handle mentally. It wears on you month after month and if more unexpected expenses come up; making rent can be a tough chore. Most people overlook how much stress debt adds to a person’s life. Most young adults have debt from college and other areas from their time in college.

Basically, I think today’s young adults are depressed or at least slightly depressed because they have come to a realization of how life really is. It is not the way they have seen it for most of their life and it is tough to understand how life can be that frustrating and tough. All you can really do is keep your mind open to the big picture of life and have patience. Knowing what struggles await you helps your mindset, but struggles have that name for a reason.

I hope this makes sense to you all. Let me know what you think. This is just my amateur psychologist try at a very troubling occurrence I have been noticing the past few years. Definitely let me know if you disagree with what I have said or if you think I have left out any major reasons.

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