Headlines trumpet an alarming trend: American teenagers are in the midst of a crisis. Their rates of anxiety and depression have been rising for years. And many of the factors contributing to this unhappiness — the psychological toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, school-shooting drills, climate change, social media — are ongoing.
Amid all this gloom, I became curious about how teenagers have been sustaining themselves. I remember how extreme the emotions of adolescence can feel; anxiety and hopelessness can seem intense, but so can joy and euphoria. Teenagers are learning who they want to be, experiencing the fullest range of their feelings and seeking out the good. In trying to figure all that out, the youngest among us might actually be the experts at looking beyond challenging circumstances to find happiness.
So I asked dozens of young people from all over the country to explain, in their own words, how exactly they do that. They told me about taking pleasure in everything from fluffy pom-pom pens to white-noise playlists to cotton-candy ice cream. Yes, sometimes these teenagers feel disillusioned and overwhelmed. But they also have routines that reliably bring them delight.
These interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Talking out loud to a rubber duck
Over the past year, I’ve been teaching myself how to code. For teenagers, a lot of things in the world feel out of our control right now. The way out of that is to actually make something ourselves.
It’s satisfying when my code works, but my favorite part is actually when it doesn’t work, because that’s when I talk to my rubber duck. “Rubber duck debugging” is a concept invented by engineers. Basically, when I’m coding, I have a literal rubber duck next to me. When I run into problems, I turn to the duck and explain what I did, step by step.
My household is really loud, so I usually code at a Panera in my neighborhood. I like to get a sweet tea and sit at a certain rectangular table, one close to the outlets. I set up my iPad, my computer, my Apple Pencil and my rubber duck. (I have around 10. Lately I’ve been using my watermelon-print duck, but I’ll probably switch to my poolside duck for summer.) Then I start to code. Right now I’m building a puzzle game.
Every time I get an error on my screen, I look around to see if anyone is watching. Then I whisper to my duck.
Talking to a rubber duck doesn’t make me feel happy, but figuring out what to do with the duck’s help does. When I finally solve the problem, I’m so happy that I feel like I could kiss the duck. I often gasp out loud. When I’m coding at home, my mom hears me scream in excitement and asks if something’s wrong. It’s a sense of overwhelming joy, because I figured it out and regained a sense of control. — Reem Khalifa, 17, Queens, N.Y.
Falling asleep on the phone with my best friend
One of my two best friends, Georgia, is a yapper. She talks so much. I’m already a big talker, and she brings it out in me. With some people I can have a chill conversation, but not with her.
We started talking at the end of ninth grade, but once I joined the soccer team in 10th grade, we got superclose. We talk to each other a lot at school, both in class and catching up on what happened when we weren’t together. After I get home from school, we don’t talk for two or three hours. But by 7 or 8 o’clock, we’re talking again. Either I’ll call her because I’m working on homework and I need motivation, or she calls me. Most nights our conversation ends by me falling asleep, and I’ll wake up the next morning to see that she’s no longer on the phone and that she texted me good night.
I love having somebody I can talk to about every random thing. When something happens — like a fight with another friend, or experiencing a microaggression — I can feel alone. Having a person makes me feel more justified in what happened. The most common question I ask Georgia is: “Am I crazy, or does this make sense to you, too?”
It also makes me feel like I’m a little kid again. Now that I’m older, there are so many important things to think about — like how to get into college, or how I’ll afford to pay for it. Georgia and I talk about serious things, but sometimes you get sick of talking about the important stuff. Then you just need to rant for an hour about how Billie Eilish deserved album of the year over Beyoncé. — Destynee Younger, 17, Jackson, Miss.
Going fishing by myself
I can instantly tell you the thing that makes me happy: It’s fishing. I like to think of it as an escape from reality. Every time I go out fishing, everything else disappears.
A lot of stuff in my life has been structured for me. I wake up, have school, sports practice and homework. Fishing is a way for me to break the loop.
Mostly I fish by myself, whenever I can. If I have a few hours after soccer or track practice, I might go out to my local pond and enjoy myself for a little bit. On the weekends or on school breaks, I often get dropped off at the lake in the morning and picked up at night. Over time, with trial and error, I’ve found a bunch of spots where I like to go: one lake I like for carp, one for catfish and two for bass. Once you get to know a place, you have a deeper relationship with it. You know where to go, what spot you want to sit at and where the fish pile up. I’d say 95 percent of the time I’m doing catch and release. You get to feel the cold wind blowing off the lake and see which birds fly around and where they nest. It’s peaceful and it’s gratifying because you figured it out yourself.
Sometimes I don’t catch anything, but I still enjoy myself. I’ve learned patience from fishing. It helps me study for a test without going crazy, and wait for Christmas or my birthday without turning the house inside out trying to find my presents. — Wren Kennedy, 14, Ridgewood, N.J.
Listening to gospel music
When I feel weary or experience doubt, I listen to gospel music. It uplifts me. One of my favorite songs is “Deliver Me,” by Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers, featuring Le’Andria Johnson. Part of it is the energy of the beat. Part of it is how you can feel the singers really doing their thing. And part of it is the spirituality. If you have your headphones on and close your eyes, you’re vibing. You can leave everything behind.
I grew up in a gospel household. We go to church every week, and when we come home, my mom plays gospel, like Sunday-cleaning-type vibes.
When I listen, I can feel the spirit move me. It’s not a still thing. I feel a sudden surge, and it makes me feel positive, happy, energetic, focused. I like to do something that requires movement, like walking my dog or doing the dishes.
I’ve suffered from some mental-health issues, and gospel has helped to bring me back. When I feel like a ball of stress, I put on headphones and I’m surrounded, like a shield of music. It helps you go on being you. — Isaiah Gregory, 17, Baltimore
Watching jellyfish videos
Jellyfish are my favorite animals. They’re one of the first animals to exist, and they’re so simple. They have no brain, no bones and are made mostly of water. Yet 500 million years later, they’re still here. No matter what happens in the world, they’re still able to live through it and keep going.
When we were in lockdown during the pandemic, I started to play jellyfish videos in the background during online school and when I was doing my homework. Since then I’ve built up a collection of hundreds of jellyfish videos on TikTok and YouTube. I especially like to watch live streams, like from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Usually I watch them in the evenings, when I’m winding down. Watching live is especially relaxing because I know that in this moment, that’s where the jellyfish are.
It’s so calming to me to watch their tentacles dance through the water. It gives me a relaxed, happy feeling. The moon jellies are my favorite because they bump into each other, which is so cute. It reminds me of a lot of people on a busy road together, all moving on their own paths. When the jellyfish collide, they gently redirect and keep going. Even when something hard happens, they remind me that it’s not the end of the world. — Maren Gossard, 18, Minneapolis
Twinning with my friends
I wouldn’t call myself a fashionista, but putting outfits together and expressing myself brings me joy. I love to go shopping or thrifting with my best friends, and plan our outfits together so that we’re matching.
We usually text the night before. Then we’ll FaceTime, so we can see what each other has. Sometimes we go to the mall specifically to get matching stuff. But we all have our own style, so we usually try to match colors in a fun way. Like, maybe I’ll wear a purple top and white bottoms, and my friend will wear a white shirt and purple bottoms. We like to wear our hair in matching ways and wear similar jewelry, too. — Hazel Kereszi-Lynn, 13, Troy, N.Y.
Waking up in the middle of the night to watch Australian soccer
Once every couple of months, I set my alarm for 2 a.m. I go downstairs in my pajama bottoms and the jersey that I wore to sleep and set up a stream of the Australian women’s soccer game. I make myself a cup of chai, and my dad comes down right as the game starts. Then we watch, rooting for our team, the Matildas, from halfway across the world.
It’s the most special thing, to share a unique passion with someone, as I do with my dad. It’s a different way to communicate our love for each other. Watching the games in the middle of the night is extra special, because I think we’re probably the only people awake within a 10-mile radius. It feels like a special moment when we get to bond, with no pressure but the pressure of our team winning. We commiserate when they lose and cheer really loudly when they score — although, when we shout after an exciting goal, we scare my dog and wake up my mom and sister.
My dad and I have always loved soccer. It’s his sport, so I wanted to play it, too. My dad is Australian, and I was born there. For me, watching the Matildas play feels like the best way to connect to my home country. It’s also a way for my dad to share Australia with me. Though sometimes at halftime, I have to take a nap. — Genevieve Henry, 18, Almont, Mich.
Drawing maps and blueprints
In sixth grade, I was recommended a YouTube video about car dependency, and ever since then I’ve been really into walkability and city planning. I’ve lived in the suburbs for my whole life, and it blew me away to learn about suburban sprawl and what happens when you build cities for cars instead of people. I was so used to it that it never occurred to me there are better ways to live.
Once I fell into this rabbit hole of city planning, I started to draw transit maps. Right now I’m working on a master plan connecting one suburb to another, and a map of how the Portland streetcar could expand to reach where I live. I’m also in leadership for my school, so one day in Spanish class I started a draft of a new state-of-the-art football stadium for our school. I was just bored, and it inspired me to think about how we could make the school better.
With climate change and politics it can feel like, What world are we growing up into? It’s so easy to see problems, and harder to envision a solution. But I like to think that there are also eight billion people in the world who can help fix those problems. When the issues are too big to tackle, it can feel overwhelming. But small things can change the world. — Mario Welliver, 16, Lake Oswego, Ore.
