Teenagers, mental health and the gospel

If you ask any teenager today to summarise in a word what they think of the state of the world, I doubt you would get one positive answer in a thousand.

Recently, in my sixth form PSHCE class, the teacher started the lesson off with that question, and sure enough the answers were immensely depressing. ‘Racist’, ‘Sexist’, ‘Classist’, ‘Empty’, ‘Dying’, ‘Pointless’ – by the end, the teacher seemed slightly taken aback at the dark direction his ‘think about the world’ exercise had taken!

Disillusioned generation

That lesson underlined for me an attitude towards life that runs deeply in my generation: disillusionment. Disillusionment with oneself, in a world where you have to be attractive, and thin, and get good grades, but never lose your sense of humour, and vote for the right people and campaign for the right issues, but always watching out in case that politician or campaign falls foul of the majority consensus. Disillusionment with the world, plagued by climate change that no one seems to be doing enough about, and politics where everyone spends so much time hating each other and yet people are still murdered by their own police, and now a pandemic that is simultaneously killing thousands and shutting you off from seeing your friends.