Given the key book to life

Teaching English and Norwegian on a vocational training school, future building- and construction workers, means my students are for the most part young men of the age 16 and older.

I have to admit I face a lot of challenges. They don’t like things to be too detailed, neat and extensive. They want everything to be to the point; “enough said”. Most of them have never written an essay longer than one page, and they actually have problems finding the right words to express themselves. I suppose I just described more than 70% of teenage boys around the world.

I’m having a bit of problem knowing what to call them; should I call them boys, young men or just refer to them as teenagers? I feel that each “title” hold a lot of truth, and yet they limit them in unfair ways.

When I was a teenager, well… first of all I like to think I was a young woman. I had a good upbringing, different yes, but I never thought of my life as a bad life. Challenging, in so many ways, but never bad.The thing about being a teenager during the 80s is that we had our rebellions, we did stupid things, but I can’t remember we gave up. I can’t remember we turned careless.

It was hard to be a teenager back then: finding ourselves were a struggle, as we faced the challenges of being a young adult. But we had time and the future ahead. We went through time of unrest and upheaval, and we were excused because we were in fact teenagers.

Now I feel like society is hardened, in a way. Our young ones are expected to grow up before they have even completed childhood. I find this is the case in most aspects of their lives.
We are talking about microfashion now. To me that is insane. Children should have clothes to play and run and explore the world in. Not wear brand mark clothes they have to behave well in. I choke in my coffee every time designers talk about outfits to 8-year old girls “sexy”.

Some idiot introduced the term children’s sexuality… what? Yes, I am aware I challenge psychology now, and I use strong and perhaps unfair words, but with a little imagination I am sure he/she/they could have come up with an expression which didn’t engage children in an introduction to adult expectations which to some extent approve of children having an active sexlife. In my mind that is just so totally wrong: Children are curious about their own body, they should not have to be made sexual objects because of that. They are learning to know themselves!

Children look in the mirror and consider their body on adult beauty standards. They go on diets and use make up in a much younger age than before.

Then the teens hit in, and they find it hard when they are not considered adults, because they have learned the ways of adulthood, and yet they never learned about the consequences. Suddenly there are things to take into consideration which arouses feelings they never expected, they never prepared for dealing with them. It is so easy to turn to anger. A feeling they can relate to, and they often punish others by punishing themselves, and the other way around.

In many ways, and in many fields which are part of being a complete person, I feel like a lot of people bring discrimination on themselves, and they do so by getting in people's faces too often and too strong. They like to say: “Accept me or else!” They act according to the saying attack is the best form of defence. They go around demanding respect as a member of a group, instead of earning respect as an individual. And that sort of behavior invites discrimination. And the feeling of being discriminated makes them angry, more aggressive, more likely to destroy relations to people around them.Within short the risk of solving the problems by using medications and nonprescription drugs, even alcohol, is sky high.

In my life confidence in myself (even though I am aware of my many flaws) and trust in others are crucial. When everything else falls apart I have that, and I get back on my feet and move on.

How do you gain confidence in yourself and trust in others, when you have never really been allowed to explore and test the limits? How do you recognize your platform in life to rely on? In my opinion being given the answers, rather than finding the answers by putting some effort into it creates insecurity rather than good skills. I understand society may not agree, but that’s how I feel like a teacher and an adult.

Happiness

Fashion is not something we deal with only in clothes, interior in a house, or any other appearance related matter. We also find fashion in lifestyle, values even emotions! Fashion pervade our entire being, whether we want it to, or not. There is no way we can avoid the influence fashion, as an impact to reckon with, has on our lives. Some of us insist they are totally unaffected, but to be totally unaffected you need to be aware and actively avoid… and then you focus a lot on fashion, in order to keep your own identity intact. It is hard work to escape the chase.

Sometimes, in the middle of all the tomfoolery surrounding me, I feel the need to reflect a little on the state of things. Lately the concept of happiness has emerged more often.

As a person I am more of a «the glass is half full» rather than «the glass is half empty», but I have my moments when I have to admit the «half full» people makes even me exhausted. In the midst of these ups and down I try to understand what happiness really is. And yet: I crawl up inside when they say that there is more to life than we are living. Why not settle for MORE? More being wide awake. More moments that take your breath away. More deep belly laughs. More of being real. More of giving your best. More soaking it in? All of it wonderful and great guidelines to a good life, but… for some odd reason it sounds like memorized mantras put like that. And I don’t think I can explain why I feel that.

I mean; We are, after all, captured in a mayhem of happiness with media, and wise guys, telling us we need to make an effort to be happy. And if we are happy, we should be even happier. It’s like it is an obligation to be happy all the time. Living in one of the best countries to live in, in the world, we are supposed to show the world how happy we are, while we work out, eat healthy (following the diet of the week), and showing off our wealth.

Family, friends, work and the great love of our life proves the manifestation, making it hard to exit, to break out of, the pink cloud of euphoric happiness the media and public speakers tell us we deserve and should embrace.

I surfed a bit online to find out what happiness is. We all have an idea of ​​what happiness really is, and yet I find that we talk at cross purposes when we talk, write or read about being happy. Some are preoccupied with what they have and need to be happy, others believe almost the opposite: to be happy, you are happier the less you own. The inherent evil of things hits hard, they say. There's very little agreement on what happiness is or what causes us to be happy.

I did find something really neat though: “Mapping Emotions On The Body…” http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over 

It shows how love makes us warm all over, but do take notice: Happiness makes us warmer. (My thirteen year old looked at the picture while I explained it to him, and then said: “Mum, I know why people fight!”)

"I want to be happy!", "I'm so happy!" , I hear it all the time, whenever friends make drastic changes in their life, whether they leave a partner, quit their jobs, get engaged or is pregnant. You never say you're happy on everyday basis. Something extraordinary has to happen for us to feel the happiness we in the media are told we deserve all the time. When you feel the spring surge in your veins, and everything is just lovely ... yes, that is happiness!
But ... you can’t change your circumstances of life all the time. Then all of us would turn silly and stressed, and thus also very unhappy.

On my search online I found a disturbing amount of tips on how to be happy. I sorted them into 9 categories… and then discovered that what is considered important to be happy in my case is a utopia. It does not fit into my lifestyle to find happiness. I am not quite convinced that it is happiness, as a euphoric state, we are really looking for, either.
Most of us are not self- centered enough to spend all that time on ourselves and our own self-realization. Other people actually limit us quite a lot, simply because we take into account and realize the circle of people who are significant to us, often we sacrifice something for them to have a good life.

The yearning and pursuit of happiness is by no means something new. What is new, is that we are told this is what we should strive for to lead a meaningful life. I don’t really get that, maybe because I am quirky, but I grew up learning happiness is something you achieve together with others. Today I sense the “me” appear as the nagging refrain. Kind of funny that everybody focuses on themselves, and is insulted everybody else isn’t doing so as well. But they are busy focusing on themselves too, so there you go.

I think that many people are unhappy because they feel they are not important for anyone. I don’t think I am someone “important”, but there are many people I certainly should have invested more in, people I love immensely, but who I never invest enough time and attention in. Family is after all there, they don’t stop being family no matter how often, or rare, you see them. It's a good argument when you stifle your (bad) conscience, I'll call later, some time.

The truth is that I should draw attention to those I love. Not force myself on them being intrusive, but a little bit, once in a while. A text message on your birthday, for example, it doesn’t cost the world, neither time nor money, but it can make a big difference in the long run.
Even better to send a letter or card in the mail. I love to receive something other than advertising and bills in the mail. Maybe, just maybe, others like that too?

I have an aunt who is incredibly good at that, and I decide here and now to have a goal to be as good: Every birthday I get a letter, and the feeling of being remembered is infinitely good. I have a long way to go to reach that goal. However, it's a fairly new year, new birthdays coming up... Tomorrow I'll find all the birthdays and store them on my phone, along with updated phone number. Yes, I’m going to get it done tomorrow.
I guess I am very lucky to be someone who is seen every day. I get attention at work, at home… even the staff at the grocery store knows me by name.

I have no idea what the right answer to what happiness really is, but ... although I shiver and tremble with freezing cold (perhaps not that strange as it is, after all, winter, and the wind has been whistling cold and hard for over a month now) spring is already well underway within me. I thaw and feel warmer inside, and although this is not the correct definition to what happiness is, I am sure it applies?