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Megan Stack
My name is Megan Stack and I'm an opinion writer for The New York Times.
It's graduation season, and so are the balloons that fill mailboxes, the parents that congratulate all the top students, and the conversations about who's going to which college and who won which awards. These are the main themes of the season. But I want to give a graduation gift to all kinds of students who didn't make it in high school.
I just want them to have faith and to really understand that there is still plenty of time, that they can totally turn their lives around, and that things will work out, actually, really, really work out. Because when I look at people that I know who have been in that situation, and this includes me to some extent, I think what's really hard is when you're 18 and you've graduated high school and you're drowning in anxiety and self-doubt and even self-loathing, it's hard to really believe that everything is going to be OK.
And looking back, I think many of us feel that if we'd known how well this was going to work out, we wouldn't have had to go through so much emotional pain, and in fact, we might have enjoyed the journey a little more.
I love the scene in Mad Men where Peggy Olson has an accidental baby. This was way back in America, and having a baby out of wedlock was very shameful. I think it breaks her down and scares her.
Archive recording (Peggy Olson)
Is that you? Are you really there?
Archive recording (Don Draper)
Yes, it is.
Megan Stack
As anyone who has watched the show knows, Don Draper, the reform guru, came up to her and said, “I’m going to tell you all about this.
Archive recording (Don Draper)
I called your house and your roommate gave me your mother's phone number.
Megan Stack
He asked her, “What do they want you to do?” She said, “I don't know.” And he said,
Archive recording (Don Draper)
Yes, I will. Please do it. Peggy, listen to me.
Get out of here and move forward.
That didn't happen.
You'll be shocked to find out that that didn't actually happen.
Megan Stack
I think that's a very powerful thing to say. There's a long tradition in America of people leaving behind old lives and things they didn't want to live with to come to this country, and I think we can embrace that. I think we can make a fresh start in a way that's liberating and empowering, that doesn't have to be shameful or secretive. I think we can do that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Often, when a child is surrounded by teachers and parents who tell them they'll never achieve anything, that they're bad at math, that they're not very social, etc., they quickly internalize these beliefs and they can stick with them into adulthood. There's research on this. Laurence Steinberg, one of the nation's leading experts on adolescent minds, has conducted numerous studies on the adolescent brain and emotional life, and has lectured widely on these topics.
Archive recording (Laurence Steinberg)
I remember more about what it was like when I was 15 than I remember something that happened last week. And it turns out I'm not unusual. Psychologists have studied this. It turns out that most people remember their adolescence better than any other time in their lives.
Megan Stack
In adolescence, you feel all your emotions much more intensely than you would at any other time in your life. So when good things happen and you feel good, you feel much better than you would as an adult. But on the other hand, when bad things happen and you feel bad about yourself and you feel sad or embarrassed or ashamed, those emotions are also much deeper and are thought to be stored in deeper physical places in the brain.
So, in a way, as you get older, you get a little bit stuck at that age psychologically, and I think the trick is to be aware of that and realize that maybe it's a little illusion created by your brain chemistry.
I think we instill a lot of fear in our kids with the best of intentions to get them on the right path and to encourage them to continue their studies, but the downside is that when they drop out, that's all they hear. They've ruined their lives.
And I can't emphasize enough that this was not the case with the people I knew. By the time I graduated high school, I was in a rebellious or destructive phase myself, and I spent most of my time with kids who were on the fringes of high school society, some of whom had already dropped out. Many of them were using a lot of drugs. There was one person I last saw many years ago who was very neglected, and we would hang out there all the time.
The last time I saw this person, he was lying on the floor with a syringe next to his arm, and I thought he'd never make it out. Then I met him a few years ago. He was doing well. He was in college, he had a job. He wasn't an addict. And he seemed very happy.
I want my graduates to think that there is no set pattern of activities that constitutes adult life in America. You have to be prepared to adapt throughout your life. Throughout your life, things happen that you never expected. I want them to feel that whatever happens is an asset. Because I really think that if you had a great experience in high school, that's an asset. And if you had a bad experience in high school, I think that can also be a very valuable asset. But think about it the right way and don't get trapped by it.