"It Doesn't Matter"

"Adults are basically just children who've grown fat, watched their dreams die, and learned to shrink from confrontation."

-- From the Happy Place introduction to its ongoing "Most Enjoyable Cantankerous Notes Ever Posted in the Workplace" segment (which is hilarious, by the way)

I was telling someone on Facebook yesterday, I'm going to start my own version of the "It Gets Better" movement, except mine will be called "It Doesn't Matter."

First of all, it doesn't get better -- it gets worse. No matter who you are -- gay or straight, black or white, cool or goofy -- unless you're Bill Gates or something, life generally gets shittier as it goes along. Yeah, so you get picked on in high school -- you still don't have bills to pay, the wreckage of bad relationships to deal with, a shit-ton of regret for your therapist to help you through or a life that didn't in any way turn out the way you planned to mourn. Getting stuffed in a locker is a hell of a lot better than getting divorced, being unemployed, having your own ungrateful children or trying to pee through a prostate the size of a cantaloupe.

Still, the important thing to remember is that, again, it doesn't matter. Nothing in high school matters. Nothing that you think is so all-out important at the time matters one fucking bit. Unless you decide to shoot up your classroom or manage to be one of unfortunate ones who falls victim to the kid who does, you're gonna get out of high school pretty much unscathed, safe in the knowledge that nothing you did during the last few years of your life means much. The right girl didn't like you? So what. Got a "C" on that Calc exam? Who cares. The bitchy kids called you names on Facebook? Fuck 'em.

Sure, there are the occasional life-altering tragedies or decisions that are so ill-advised that they really do have lasting repercussions, but let's face it -- those are anomalies.

For the most part your teenage years don't matter one bit.