High School, Nietzsche, and the Secret to Lasting Joy

Be joyful, even at high school reunions

What if the secret to joy lies not in seeking more but in repeatedly embracing the life you live? Can you face the challenge Nietzsche proposed?

As I approach my 30th high school reunion, these questions hit a nerve. I once wished away those teenage years, but I have some distance now and hopefully have grown out of the awkwardness and insecurity that marked that time. Back then, all I wanted was to move past the present, so I embraced the future and its potential as a means to ignore what I didn’t want to see and feel.

I can’t deny there was some joy sprinkled in those high school years. I had a few close friends and had fun. Sometimes, I thought I was in love. And there was one particularly inspiring teacher. But would I have characterized myself as joyful?

I wasn’t popular. I was in band, although there was that one time in band camp that was pretty good. With young love came heartaches and confusion. There were imagined arch-nemeses, and I struggled with A.P. Chemistry.

If only I had added Nietzsche to my voracious reading . . .

Imagine a philosopher who turns our usual thinking about happiness upside down. Friedrich Nietzsche proposed ideas that might make…