When Your Teen Asks “Is Life Even Worth Living?”: What I Learned As A High School Teacher
It was 3:15 on a Tuesday, and I was shoving crumpled worksheets into the recycling bin when I noticed Lila still slouched in the back row. Her chipped black nail polish picked at the edge of a field trip permission slip, and her half-drunk iced matcha had left a ring of condensation pooled on my desk. Everyone else had bolted for the bus or after-school practice, so I wiped my hands on my jeans and asked if she needed help with that day’s homework.
She shook her head, then mumbled, “Can I ask you something weird?”
I pulled my squeaky rolling chair over to her row instead of staying behind my desk and sat down. “Hit me.”
“Is life actually worth living? Like, really?”
I’ve been teaching 10th grade for 12 years, and I’ve heard this question enough that I don’t freeze up anymore, but it still catches me off guard every time—especially when it comes from someone like Lila. She gets B+’s and A’s, she’s a forward on varsity soccer, she posts silly dance reels with her little sister on Instagram. On paper, she has every reason to be happy.
First, I did the thing I tell every new teacher and parent to do first: I asked her straight out if she was thinking of hurting herself. No beating around the bush, no softening the question so much it becomes confusing. She blinked, then shook her head fast. “No, I’m not gonna hurt myself. I just… I don’t get what the point is. We wake up, go to school, do homework, go to college, get a job, pay bills, get old, die. Why bother with all of it?”
I get it. I asked my own mom the same question when I was 17, two days after I failed my first driver’s test and my grandma died the same week. No one ever talks about how most of life is just… middle bits, not the big graduation or wedding or promotion moments we see in movies. My mom told me “it gets better” and that just made me feel worse, like I was doing something wrong for feeling this way right now.
So I didn’t tell Lila it gets better. I didn’t list all the amazing things waiting for her in the future. I just said, “Some days I don’t think so, honestly.”
Her head snapped up. No one ever says that, right? Everyone always jumps in with “Of course it is!” “You have so much to live for!” Like asking the question makes you broken.
I told her about last month, when I had a bad cold that kept me home for four days. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, I ached all over, and the only thing that made getting out of bed in the morning worth it was the tiny jar of lemon drops my sister dropped off, and old reruns of a 90s sitcom I loved as a kid. That was it. No big epiphany, no grand purpose. Just two tiny things that made the day less bad.
I reminded her that when we read To Kill a Mockingbird three weeks earlier, she laughed so hard at Scout’s ham costume that she snort-laughed, and the whole class laughed so hard the teacher next door banged on the wall. I told her the peaches at the roadside stand on Oak Street are ripe right now, and they taste like summer even if you eat them in the car on the way to practice.
She pulled out her phone after a minute and showed me a photo of a skinny orange stray cat that hangs around the soccer field. “I feed him every morning before practice,” she said. “I look forward to it. But it feels stupid to say that’s the point, you know? Everyone keeps talking about finding your purpose and reaching your goals.”
I told her there’s no rule that says you need one big purpose. You can have 100 tiny reasons that change every week. One week it’s the stray cat, the next it’s the new album from your favorite band, the next it’s planning a movie night with your friend. It doesn’t have to add up to something big to be worth it.
What I’ve learned, from my classroom and my own family, is that most parents and teachers get this question wrong two ways. First, we panic immediately and treat it like an automatic crisis. It’s good to check for risk, always, but most of the time, it’s just a kid being honest about how overwhelming all the pressure to be successful and happy feels right now. Second, we hit them with a bunch of big, distant promises that feel fake when you’re 16 and already burnt out from college app prep.
The concrete thing anyone can do, if this happens to you, is this: First, ask directly about safety. That’s non-negotiable. If they say they’re not in danger, don’t rush to fix the question. Let them talk about why they’re asking, without interrupting to disagree. Then, if you’re comfortable, share one tiny, boring good thing from your own life that has nothing to do with achievements. You don’t have to give a speech. Just that one thing.
Lila left 20 minutes later, running late to soccer practice. She texted me that night a blurry photo of a peach she’d picked up at the roadside stand on her way home, with the message “was good.” I haven’t had a big deep conversation with her about it since. Last week, she waved at me in the hallway, carrying a tray of brownies for the student council bake sale, and mouthed “the cat’s fat now” and grinned.
I still don’t have a definitive answer to that question, any more than she does. Some weeks I do, some weeks I get caught up in grading and laundry and car repairs and I don’t. That’s okay. We don’t have to give our kids a perfect answer. We just have to let them know it’s okay to ask, and that the small stuff counts even when it doesn’t feel big enough.
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