“Wait, what are you doing right now?” he asked me.
I was melodramatically pretending to cry as the youth left the party.
“Oh, I’m just pretending I’m sad to see him leave,” I explained. “I made fun of him a lot tonight, and so now I’m building up his self-esteem.” The youth listened, mouth agape, staring at me.
As I’ve said before, my magnetism to youth is remarkable.
But unfortunately, we’re not supposed to make fun of millennials anymore. In fact, we’re not supposed to make fun of anyone anymore. So, at the next party, I tried to conform.
I stuffed snack after snack into my mouth in an effort not to speak.
The problem is that if we really want to do this self-esteem thing right, we shouldn’t say anything true at all. Millennials, for example, have self-esteem that is 1/4 inch thick. If we accidentally blow the truth in their vicinity, they cry or get upset. “How dare you assault me with the truth?” they retort. “Don’t you know I’m sensitive?”
And so we apologize and cower to the needs of their egos.
“You’re doing great!” we assert, every time they look up from their iPhones or get out of bed.
“I can see you are trying to do some math! You get a star!”
“You ran in a race that you didn’t even train for? You get a medal! Everyone gets a medal!”
And with all of this self-esteem and encouragement, and “Well done!” floating around, you’d think our youth would be boyoed up by all this praise and floating happily on their circumstances in life.
Of course, we all know that youth depression and mental illness are at an all-time high.
So why not try another approach?
What if we tell everyone they’re losers?
It’s counterintuitive (like all my best advice), but we can finally let our stomach fat out and relax! We can stop pretending to be someone we’re not. We can get on with enjoying the party games, popcorn and time together.
“What are you talking about?” you ask.
Well, if we could relax and let our kids relax, I think we’d have a lot more fun. We don’t have to, in fact, shield our kids from the fact that they’re messed up and that we are, too. There is surprising freedom in realizing that we are all losers.
If we are at the bottom of the pit, there’s nowhere to go but up!
Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us.
Hope abounds because things can only get better!
Once we stop showering accolades on each other, and accept that we are all dorks, lost on the ship we call life, the adventure can begin!
Anyone around here seen a Captain? We could certainly use some help getting cleaned up a bit, and figuring out how to work together to get all of our oars on this boat pulling in the same direction.
And so, how do we feel better?
1. We realize we are a directionless loser.
2. We find someone to help clean us up a bit.
3. We follow this person and therefore, all grow together in the same direction.
He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
And life gets a little easier!
Spiritual people, for example, those who know that they are losers because they desperately need someone to clean them up, lead them and help them all row in a similar direction, tend to struggle a bit less frequently with their mental health.*
So stop building up people’s self-esteem! Trash them instead, knowing that this is the best way to build them up! They’ll (eventually) feel better!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Blogpost Footnotes
*Of course, many people within the church struggle with mental health, and research is based on averages.
Restoring Life 