It’s Okay to Have Friends

Mental health problems are among the greatest concerns for Gen Z. Maintaining one's mental health is imperative to the mobility of the self; it is the self-care before facial soaps and painted lips. Excessive self-diagnosing and negative outlooks on life among Gen Z contribute significantly to mental health concerns. The negative moments of a person’s life are often labeled as “trauma”, even when said “trauma” does not correlate to the scientific studies of how trauma operates.  

Has mental illness now become trivialized from the point of view of those who are genuinely impacted by it? Is it now “normal” to suffer? Does being happy mean that there is no substance within you, that you aren’t “deep”? Realistically, the world can be bitter and disappointing, and enforcing ideas of loneliness or solitude on social media apps and each other can compound the problem.  

It’s vital that Gen Z young people engage with each other and find healthy ways to cope with the ever-changing world and learn to perceive the world with more optimism. If subliminal messages say much, it is known that drilling negative ideas into the core of the mind will have detrimental impacts. It's okay to touch grass and breathe fresh air, and it’s okay to be that happy person who smiles at a squirrel eating a nut. It’s okay to live in your own little world as time moves on and the flowers in your tiny garden grow. However, please stay informed about wars and famines, and question the system, but don’t forget to do it with a smile and as open a mind as possible.  

Entering adulthood has its challenges, so let’s not take for granted the time of gold we have now before that gold becomes iron and rusts away.