You know, or at least have some deep down apprehension, that the world is spinning out of control. It is, and I read a disturbing damage report in yesterday’s “New York Times Magazine.”
“Anxiety is the most common mental-health disorder in the United States, affecting nearly one-third of both adolescents and adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. But unlike depression, with which it routinely occurs, anxiety is often seen as a less serious problem.” Author Benoit Denizet-Lewis presents Jake as one example of this exploding problem. Very gifted, outgoing, and driven to succeed, Jake seems to be what we hope for in the next generation. “Failure was one of Jake’s biggest fears. He worried about it privately; maybe he couldn’t keep up with his peers, maybe he wouldn’t succeed in life.” Then one day, “he refused to go to school and curled up in the fetal position on the floor. ‘I just can’t take it!’ He screamed. ‘You just don’t understand.’”
“In 1985, the Higher Education Research Institute at U.C.L.A. began asking incoming college freshmen if they ‘felt overwhelmed by all I had to do’ during the previous year. In 1985, 18 percent said they did. By 2010, that number had increased to 29 percent. Last year it surged to 41%” The well-researched article suggests several causes: Smart phones and similar devices, social media, the political climate in our country, and parents. “Anxious teenagers tend to come from anxious parents.”
That last source suggests older people scrutinize ourselves. Have we let the assurances of our heavenly Father’s care slip out of our own lives, to our own harm and to the harm of the next generation that learns from us? “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and up-location with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). In anxiety we have a challenge of sanctification that has consequences.
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