According to a new survey by the CDC, American teens are facing a drastic mental health crisis.

Below are the crazy numbers for “Percent of High-School Students Feeling Persistently Sad or Hopeless”

A few thoughts:

Long-Term Joy vs. Fleeting Pleasure: We are abandoning our primal roles in life in exchange for immediate and brief sensations of pleasure and “happiness.” The more we tell our children to idolize celebrities, social media followers, money, and self-gratification OVER long-term fulfilling purpose, service, and joy, the more we will see these numbers grow. We must embrace love, children, family, tradition, nature, and community. We must get back to our roots to fix our minds.
Hyper-Sexualization of Children: Teenage students are still children. I am deeply disturbed with our culture’s sexualization of young tweens and teens. Not only that, we tell young women they will feel empowered by “taking control of their bodies” and embracing hook-up culture. In reality, this is incredibly anti-science. Women release the serious connection hormone called oxytocin when they have sex. Men do not. Hook up culture breaks down a woman, especially young girls, on a biological level.

I could say a lot more, but for now I’m just saddened by these numbers. Everything we do should be focused around improving the human spirit of Americans. Let’s embrace our natural roles as men and women. Let’s encourage our youth to embrace their societal duties to flourish in a family, to raise their own children, to build a better world for the generation after them. Let’s cut our toxic tie to screens and the “metaverse” and enjoy the outdoors. Let’s embrace virtue and sources of long-lasting joy, not fleeting feel-good vices.

Finally, let’s tell power-hungry politicians to shove it, like our founders would have.

Life will become much better for Americans of all ages when we get back to our American AND natural roots.