In the Philippines growing up, everyone from parents to teachers told me and my friends to appreciate our youth, specifically high school, cause they all say it’s the best time of their lives. Even now, a lot of friends agree it was the most incredible part of our lives thus far.
In America however, I hear “You peaked in high school.” is an insult, so are you supposed to keep it to yourself if high school was the happiest time of your life?
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It isnt so much about whether you had a good time in high school, it’s about whether you ever outgrew it and have anything to truly offer as an adult.
“Peaking in high school” is definitely an insult and it can resonate with those who eventually mature enough to understand it. Basically you’re saying somebody was immature and their personality and whatever else only made them popular when among other teenagers. As adults, they have little to offer.
High school was fun and I generally had a decent time, but my life is so much more rich and fulfilling now than it was then.
When people say that you peaked in high school it’s more about those people who just can’t let go. They are still obsessed with high school and just won’t move on from it. Although I would hate for that to have been the best time of my life. It was good but it was just a chapter.
I understand everyone is different but if you peak in high school I feel sorry for you
No. But I think there’s such a thing as not appreciating the moment you’re in and not trying to create that happiness in the life you live today.
I think the ‘peaked in high school’ slur is mainly for those who were the homecoming queen, the quarterback, or whatnot who never did much after graduation.
High school was definitely not the best time of my life. You have no autonomy, don’t get paid, and no one takes you seriously. The only people who look back at high school like that are the people who, like you said, peaked in high school. That’s when they were the best looking and people liked them, probably for superficial reasons. These are people who have done nothing notable with their lives since then. So yes, it’s considered embarrassing by most people.
Nah. Own your happiness. But it helps to know why you were happiest there.
I didn’t care for high school, but I was a huge nerd with no confidence or self esteem. Took getting to grad school to feel like I was approaching a “peak” of any kind.
Also worth remembering that we see the past as we last remembered it, not necessarily as it actually was, which usually means rose colored glasses.
High school life, by comparison was much simpler than 34-year-old life, but I’m not sure I’d trade the two.
The concept of high school being the happiest time of your life is very common in the U.S. too – I remember people lecturing me about that then and I thought – oh fuck, I hope that’s not true.
And it wasn’t true.
I don’t know because for me high school sucked. It was something to endure in the hopes that some day life might get better. It did get better, more or less, but I still wish I could erase those years from my memory.
Enjoying high school is good, peaking in high school is bad, you seem to be conflating the two.
I think that most Americans think that people who think High School was the best part of their lives are usually pretty lame lol
It was for me.
It’s much more that you should be growing as a person and hopefully developing more memories.
Peaking in high school means like a guy who was starting qb in high school and is now a bum who won’t shut up about those years.
Absolutely not. I definitely miss the lack of responsibility and the “freedom” that comes with being a teen but I would never change it. I enjoy the life experience that I’ve accumulated and working/making money too much haha
Now if only I had the same youthful energy that I used to…
I hated high school, the only good thing about it was meeting my future wife.
Sad more than bad
Both comments are common in the US, but they apply in different ways.
“High school is the best time of your life” is a commentary on the relative freedom of that age, when you are developing adult interests but don’t yet have any adult obligations. It’s a pretty “rose-colored” take, because the flip side is that high school is full of limitations like parental oversight, legal limits, and low income.
“You peaked in high school” is more an indictment of an individual who hasn’t fully accepted or found success in adult life, especially if they were popular in high school.
I don’t think it’s bad, but I would feel sad for someone if I heard that. Not that high school can’t be a super fun time with friendship and freedom and lack of worries, but if it’s the happiest time of your life, that means that 90% of your life is less happy than a 4 year period.
A lot of Americans didn’t enjoy high school for a variety of reasons, including bullying, broken homes, controlling or abusive parents, etc
Americans also highly value independence and freedom.
So many Americans see enjoying high school and juvenile and immature.
I didn’t really enjoy going to classes. They were boring for the most part. But I did really enjoy seeing my friends, being surrounded by cute girls that I could flirt with, still having some independence since I had my own car and spending money from my job. When someones parents were out of town we partied on the wrekends. Also, summers were amazing.
So it just depends on what their high school experience was like. Mine was good, so I remember it fondly, especially since adult life is just work or preparing for work almost every waking moment. But not living with my parents is something I enjoy as well, even tho I have my own bills now.
I’m in my mid-30s and I remember hearing similar comments (these are the best times of your life) from adults when we were in high school. I can’t really think of specifics, but at the very least it was something we (teenagers) were aware of as a thing that adults would say.
“Peaked in high school” is a little bit different because what it specifically refers to as a someone who is trying relive their glory days of high school. The stereotypical example would be some middle-aged guy who was the star football player in high school and who still keeps going on and on about what a great player they were.
It might say more about me and my friend groups, or maybe it’s a Millennial thing in general, but there is a general perception that it’s kind of sad or unusual to consider high school the happiest time of your life. I certainly don’t consider it the happiest time of my life, I enjoy being an adult and have the freedoms I have now and the more mature mindset to appreciate life in a way that I didn’t when I was in high school.
High school is a social experiment of putting 1,000 to 2,000 hormonal teens in a building with cliques and hierarchy. The second you graduate, no one cares if you were popular. It’s nothing like real life. Maybe because it is the 21 year old drinking age and college is far away from your folks but 18-22 was miles better. You’re into your studies. You find people with similar interests and can socially hang out whenever. What you also do impacts life a little more.
Peaking in high school was being popular when it didn’t really matter.
High school’s one of the worst times in many people’s lives. Being a teenager isn’t easy. I think it also is really harmful for our teenagers when they’re going through all these brain changes and social changes and stress and then we tell them that this is as good as it’s ever going to get.
Peaking in high school is a different thing though. It says like your high school accomplishments for the biggest accomplishment and she’ll ever have and you didn’t have any success as an actual adult. Like if you’re 45 years old and the highlight of your life was the football game you played your junior year of high school, you haven’t had a very successful life.
Peaking isn’t the same as it being the best time.
It was great not having to work and support myself or a family. Just letting others handle it all.
Peaking though means that they haven’t accomplished anything or done much since then.
The years 17-25 are the years you are in peak physical and reproductive form…it literally is all downhill from there PHYSICALLY.
The insult comes from the idea that we consider graduating high school a ‘beginning’. If you have nothing to offer and when it comes to the ‘work’ world, someone with all the high school advantages (popularity, physical attributes) are left at the bottom of the totem pole…especially if their grades are shit. And their best years were in high school. It is particularly sad/funny if it someone who keeps harping on the fact that ‘Back in high school, I did…’…that’s a sad statement from someone who is over the age of, say…22…and not in a career that made them BMOC/BWOC in high school
My high school experience was truly shitty. I think that if you peak in high school, the rest of your life will be a letdown.
I’m assuming when people say that highschool will be the best time of your life, they mean that you’re young and carefree. You have a lot of free time and don’t have to carry the burdens of adulthood yet. So, overall a time people may feel reminiscent about.
Peaking in highschool is a different thing. It’s less about being happy, more about achievement (at least that’s how I understand it). If you were your best self in highschool or boast about stuff that happened back then, you haven’t exactly been successful as an adult.
Edit for typo
Cherishing happy memories is good. But being someone who can’t embrace the possibilities of adulthood because you’re wallowing in the past is sad. Excessive nostalgia can be a kind of depression.
That phrase is more to insult ppl who didn’t grow up past high school or are incapable of adapting as an adult; I wish i had a great high school experience but I didn’t even have a good one. If I could go back I’d change everything and anything I could, I’d make such different choices. If other ppl had a good time, you just bring it up when it’s appropriate 🤷🏽♀️ if someone’s talking about being bullied for xyz at their school, they wouldn’t wanna hear “that’s crazy! I have the same thing but at my school they named me prom king!” It’d be pretty rude. But happiness should always be celebrated.
The implication of “You peaked in High School” is that the person in question didn’t grow or mature beyond how they were in high school. High school is a thing we (almost) all go through, so it’s something almost everybody has in common, but… man, there’s a time to talk about being in high school, and that’s when you’re still a high school student and maybe for a couple years afterward if you go straight to college.
Constantly talking about the high school football team you’re on when you’re 17 is fine, even expected. It’s sad if you’re in your 40s and what you consider to be the most important time in your life is STILL the time you scored four touchdowns in a single game when you were 17. You really haven’t accomplished ANYTHING you think is notable or that you’re proud of since then? Your career, your creative work, stuff you do in or with or for your community, your family and friends – none of them mean as much to you as when you were still a stupid kid in school does? You haven’t grown as a person at all since then? Really?
I had a coworker like that. Nearly 40, all he talked about was being on his high-school football team. The girls he got with back then, it was kind of sad. From about 26 years old to now, I’ve had the best years of my life! I couldn’t imagine only having high school as a reference to accomplishments and fun experiences in that much time. Thats just the beginning of most peoples lives!
I think it goes beyond appreciation of our youth, such as appreciating being younger and able bodied enough to enjoy things without hindrance of age related downsides.
When someone says “You peaked in high school”, it means the person never grew up. They’re stuck in the past and never grew and developed any further. Basically, they’re immature and really have very little to offer as an adult.
It’s good to enjoy high school. But if you’re really hanging on to your high school accomplishments and bragging about them as an adult, it would be seen as sad and pathetic. Like, I won quite a nice award from my high school upon graduation and I was proud at the time, but if I was still putting it on my resume and telling people about it a lot now, as an adult, that would be really weird and indicate that I haven’t done anything noteworthy since.
Yes
It’s fine to look back on your high school days with nostalgia. Everything is exciting, I worked but had no bills so had money to spend without having to budget, and overall had a great time. It was one of the greatest periods of my life, much better than my early 20s. But then I met my (now) wife in my mid-20s and I would say right now, at 36, is the best time of my life.
Nope I hated school.
I think it is sad if high school was truly the happiest time in your whole life. It is 4 years of life where you have limited experiences and rights. Why would it be the happiest? I’m 50 years old and wouldn’t consider my high school years my happiest years of life. Yean, you should appreciate your youth but that doesn’t mean everything is downhill after high school.
Peaked in high school means the person hasn’t done anything good since high school. High school glory is not very important outside of high school.
I don’t think most Americans would consider high school to be their happiest years. To be honest for a lot of people it’s considered a harrowing time. For many people it’s where a lot of issues come to a head.
A lot of people face pretty bad bullying during high school. Late adolescence is where a lot of mental health illnesses start to surface and many kids don’t have adequate resources to handle that. Most of your friends are basically friends of circumstance, you’re all just forced to be in the same place. A lot of high school kids here are under a lot of stress and pressure due to a lot of homework, extracurriculars, college applications, etc.
And also, you’re an immature person at that age. Most people “grow up”, they become more empathetic, intelligent, educated, emotionally mature, etc.
If someone relates too heavily to high school or is overly nostalgic about high school most people will take that as a sign that they’re immature and haven’t grown as a person since then or it’s a sign of privilege that you didn’t struggle.
Beyond that, it could also mean that you haven’t amounted to much since high school.
It’s just extremely odd for me to imagine thinking high school was their happiest time and constantly dwelling on it. It’s what napoleon dynamite was making fun of with uncle Rico. I don’t think I can live my life with that strong of an attachment to something so distant. I’m working on now and tomorrow, making that better. I can use what I learned in the past, but the focus is not and cannot be there.
I was also told my whole childhood that highschool will be the best time of our lives . Peaking in high school means life didn’t get good again afterwards, and it’s usually towards people that were not very nice when they were in hs
It’s a generational thing. In high school things are the opposite of fair. Raging scumbags, and lowlifes rule. Then these people leave the protected shelter of being a minor. Pretty girl burn youth in high school become bitter pudgy women. Aggressive violent bully’s go to prison, and find out they not so tough. After high school, you don’t have to become rich or famous. Just being an adult will give a life.
Saying someone “peaked in high school” is basically just saying that they never really matured beyond the mindset of a teenager, not that it’s bad to enjoy your youth. A lot of people look back on their high school years very fondly, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It just isn’t a very healthy mindset for people to look at their years in high school as the only period of their life where they can have fun or do something meaningful. People also shouldn’t keep acting with the maturity of a teenager when they’re well into their 40s.
I think it’s profoundly sad to consider the best part of your life already behind you, no matter where you live and who you are. It may end up being true on your deathbed I guess, but you have to give yourself a chance. It”s a depressing and self defeating thing to believe when you still have an entire life to live. You’re never going to prove that assumption wrong if you accept it…like, by saying “life sucks after you turn 18” you officially make it true for yourself.
And when people say it to others and not just themselves, I find it to be very rude. Like don’t put that tortured mindset onto me. Maybe it’s because I was suicidally depressed for most of my adolescence, so basically when people say that to me, they are telling me something extremely disturbing which basically suggests I should give up on life and kms. Of all people I understand that feeling, but why unload it onto me, an innocent person trying to carve out that meager sense of optimism I have access to? For me, being 30 is a hundred times better than being 16, and I resent when people try to chip away that.
I think so. My friend is almost 30 and he still brings up stuff from high school on the daily. He absolutely peaked then
Lots of people all over the world get stuck in the rat race of after completing high school you instantly get a job and are now just in the workforce for the next 50-60 years. For most people high school is the best time of their life because it was the last time they had pretty much a clear schedule and spent most of their time goofing off with friends and having little to no responsibilities. This is true in the United States
“You peaked in high school” is normally an insult for people who just don’t do anything with their life, not for people who just enjoyed high school. Working same dead end job, not going out, not having any friends after high school, etc. If somebody was a “popular kid”, had girlfriends and plenty of friends, was the quarterback of the football team, etc. they’d seem like they had it all in high school, but then if they graduate and work at 7/11 for 15 years and knock up some random woman and get a divorce and live in some crappy apartment then “you peaked in high school” would be an applicable insult
No, but many people would consider it odd if it really was the best time of your life.
Idk if bad, but I would consider it sad.
To have the happiest, most incredible times of your life already behind you at 18 when there’s so much life after that seems like your adult life must be kind of sad and unhappy.
If you peaked in high school, it means you’re wasting your life and living in the past instead of the present. Think about how sad it would be if you never had any good times after you finished high school!
And when people say it’s the happiest time of your life, they’re referring to the fact that it’s the last time you won’t have any real responsibilities – you don’t have to pay bills or go to work every day.
Two different things. Peaking in high school generally refers to some one who was a sports star and after graduating never accomplished anything important again. Or the super smart girl who didnt live up to her potential.
I prefer College. You’re an adult, but still in school. You can drink. You get to go to Mexico for Spring Break. Get laid. The memories are more fun.
Yes. Glory Days by Springsteen covers that.
Both statements can be true and are really talking about two different things. It is widely thought of in America. That high school is a great time. You are growing up, you don’t have the pressures of adult life yet, but you have a ton of time to go out and have fun with your friends
The sentiment of having peaked in high school is different. Saying that someone peaked in high school is conveying the idea that they did interesting things in their teen years and after graduation they have never done anything noteworthy. It also conveys the idea that your personal identity hasn’t really changed since you were in high school. Not a big deal if you are 19 but pretty insulting if you’re 47
“Peaked in high school” is an insult that specifically means that since high school you’ve done nothing of value. It means that high school was the last time you mattered.
Calling high school ‘the best time of your life’ is viewed as similarly sad. It means that after high school you really don’t have shit to look forward to. It implies you ‘peaked in high school.’
In my opinion if high school was the happiest time of your life, you really need to look at what you can do to improve your adult life. Hell, that applies to anything really, if X years ago was the happiest time of your life, you need to figure out how to make now even better. You might not succeed, but if you’re just accepting that you’ve already had the best there is then why do you even bother?
I mean, I kind of like being an adult. High school was bullies and feeling like an outcast. Now I have money, a wife, kids I love, and a great life. Work isn’t the best, but I can tolerate enough to make a living. Overall it ALWAYS beats the hell out of high school.
High school was all good and fun but college was way better and now I’m in my 30s and have a job that allows me to actually do things I want to do and I have a wife and kids and this is even better than college. I assume being a retired grandparent will be even better than this.
If you peaked in H.S. and that was the happiest time, then you must have a sad life.
Typically college days are seen as the best days since it has the balance between carefree youth and the freedom of being an adult. You don’t have a bed time but you also don’t have all the responsibilities of anyone in the work force full-time.
High school was my silliest and most fun, but was it my most happiest, confident, and life-enriching moments? Nope that’s my life now ✨
It is smart to appreciate your youth while you can. Peaking in high school, on the other hand, means that you haven’t done anything you’re proud of since high school. High school is four years towards the beginning of your life, so it would be sad if those were the best years. That’s what the Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days” is about.
I remember songs in the 80s being written about stuff like this and I think it’s kind of a thing that grew out of the Vietnam generation. All your friends were alive and hanging out on the weekends having a good time and were in an emotionally great place. Then some of you go to college, some of you got to war, a lot of them died, and a lot of them come back a shell of themselves. You still had those memories of being young, happy, and together. For people of that time, high school was the last time they had that all.
Peaking in high school means that the dude who played football married the cheerleader, works a dead end factory job, she’s a waitress, they have three kids, a mortgage they can barely afford, they can’t afford to leave about a 200 mile radius when they go on vacation, they’ve never been on a plane, and they never miss a class reunion where the only thing either of them talk about is how great high school was because it’s literally the only time in their lives they were special or that was good.
Plenty of people consider high school to have been fun, and have gone on to college, good careers, have interesting hobbies, and such. People who have something to talk about other than the four years of high school that happened 10 or 20 or 40 years ago.
It’s about being someone who does nothing interesting with the entire rest of your life.
For a lot of people, high school age is when you’re approaching the highest levels of personal freedom while also having the lowest level of responsibility. That’s why people tend to talk about them being the best times.
Peaked in high school is basically an insult saying that an individual had their biggest achievements during those years. Achievements some would consider trivial.
“you peaked in high school” means that you have no achievements as an adult, which is why it is an insult.
You should try to enjoy being young because that’s when you’re likely to be in the best health of your life and also when you’re likely to have the fewest responsibilities.
“Right Now” should be the happiest time of your life. Don’t you want your life to keep getting better?
It means you peaked early, which when you think about it, is depressing. If you will never be as happy again as you were at some point in the past, you have less to look forward to.
Kids should definitely experience the good side of the teenage years for sure, but for the good kids out there, I want their futures to be even better.
Do they not have college in the Philippines? Because college is exponentially better than high school.
That being said, there are a lot of people in the US that view high school as their best years. They are older, still go to their class reunions, and live in or near the same towns in which they grew up.
The “you peaked in high school” thing refers to people that may have been socially active and popular in high school as kids but never really wanted to do anything with their lives after high school.
It is often interpreted as an insult because it’s saying you’ve been going downhill since you were 18 which is tough for a lot of people to accept.
Myself I’d love to be back in the relatively carefree days of high school. I wasn’t popular but it was great seeing my small group of friends everyday. Adult life fucking sucks and slaving away to make money isn’t life but what are you going to do? Starve?
As other comments have pointed out that phrase isn’t really synonymous with enjoying high school.
I’ll add that some Americans think high school is the time of thier lives but I would argue that most idolize college as the best time of thier life. Or maybe thier twenties in general.
I don’t understand how anybody thinks that high school is the best part of their life. I’m in my late 30s, and the only reason I would have to go back in time to high school would be to not do some stupid things that I did back then. I wouldn’t want to go back to my 20s either, because I did did dumb crap then like drinking too much and rotating from one dead-end job to the next because I was too angry and immature to do life better. I’m good where I’m at right now. I’ve got a steady job with decent income, a great family, and I look forward to the future.
•Relatively few responsibilities.
•Relatively high freedom to do things.
•Youth.
Never getting that combination again in your life.
High school is hard in the US for many. For outside cultures it may be different where the youth are closely tied to their family lives. In the US there are popularity cliques and it is quite stressful for many youths.
Yeah, people who say that drivel peaked in high school. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go back to that time and my life at almost 40 is INFINITELY better than it was then.
Some people believe that high school is the happiest time of their lives. Not me.
I wouldn’t say that it was high school that made me happy, it was just being young. Being a kid with no major responsibilities, hanging out with your friends all the time. That part was great.
The ‘peaking in high school’ is definitely a thing. Every time I hear that phrase I think of one of my nephews. He was a popular kid in high school, star of the basketball team, had tons of friends and girlfriends. Everyone worshipped the ground he walked on. After graduation? Nobody cared anymore. He ended up getting a girl pregnant and getting a dead end job. No college or big career afterwards, just barely scraping by.
peaking in hs is a way of saying you never matured beyond that stage in your life. it can very well be the happiest and most memorable part of your life though, so they aren’t the same thing. here college/uni stage is considered the most “memorable” time since you have more freedom, but HS isn’t too far behind so i don’t think there’s a huge cultural difference here
High school very well might be the most enjoyable time in a person’s live. Autonomy and respect increase, while responsibility and consequence remain relatively low.
What isn’t good is for a person’s capstone achievements to have occurred in high school. If you are a successful person in high school, socially, academically, athletically, etc, but then never accomplish anything in adulthood, it’s sad and embarrassing.
“You peaked in high school” is not necessarily about that person’s happiness. It means that person commanded power and respect in high school more than they do as an adult.
More sad.
It’s not bad, but if that’s all you ever talk about or refer to, then yes, it’s bad. “Peaking in high school” means your life got boring and unremarkable the moment you graduated, so much so you rely on nostalgia for a cheap escape.
Retirement is my happiest time of life by far. You’ve gone through the grind, plus you (potentially) have money, you get to do whatever you (reasonably) want to do, and the wisdom to make good choices.
Yeah, sorry you peaked at 15.
Kind of sad if you peaked in high school.
It isn’t much about Highschool but a longing time of no responsibility and had your life organized by the adults you’re around.
Both things can be true.
High school could be the happiest time of your life, because it was the last time when all your needs and concerns were taken care of by someone else, and you had no responsibilities other than to be happy. High school, at least in an idealized view, is also a situation where you spent every day seeing your friends and getting to spend time with them.
But once you’re older, you have more responsibilities, don’t get to spend all your time with your friends, and don’t have other people seeing to all your needs. You might be less happy as a result, but you’re also accomplishing much more. Saying that someone “peaked in high school” means they never made a successful transition to an adult form of life. The complaint isn’t that they’re still happy, it’s that their newfound unhappiness stems from a failure to adapt rather than the normal adult demands of having bills to pay etc.
Maybe it means that you buckled down and took on adult responsibilities after you graduated. That’s not a bad thing, sad though it may be.
Depends how old you are. if you’re still in Hs or just a few years out, not that bad.
If your 50 years old. ya that’s pretty bad.
Yeah means you peaked in your teens which considering we live to our 70-80s isnt great
It’s seen as a negative but way more people do it than would admit publicly.
I didn’t think so at the time, but high school was actually pretty awesome for me.
College, and my early to mid 20s, were not so great. I kinda thought I’d peaked in high school, which was super depressing.
Then things really took off for me in my late 20s and every year has been better than the last. I’m 41 now, happily married with a toddler and a dog.
Not American. But having no responsibilitys, no bills to pay. Being in my late teens was great
If you peaked in high school you’ve got issues. I would NEVER go back to that time. What, so I can sit in a classroom all day? Good Lord.
yes
Everyone has their own different life experiences. No one else’s opinion but your own matters.
Bad? No. Sad? Yes. And even if its only part of your own internal monologue, you might end up wishing you’d never heard of Al Bundy.
If everything is downhill after high school, I dunno I’m just saying it shouldn’t be. Things should continue to go up the more you experience and learn, not the other way around.
I’m in my 40s. Most people my age grew up hearing that same line that you did in the Philippines.
The ‘peaked in high school’ insult is relatively new. I don’t recall hearing that one until about 10 or 15 years ago. Although it was kind of a trope in popular culture prior to then; Al Bundy, uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, etc.
Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” for a good definition of peaking in high school.
I find it sad.
As an American, I feel like I’m in the minority where high school was the four worst years of my life lol. I always joke I enjoyed the hazing during my pledging process in college more than I ever enjoyed high school.
It depends on why you consider it to be the best time of your life. If you are refering to the aspect of being popular or getting recogonition for x, y, z, then that is often seen as ‘peaking in high school’. The shallow things that you lost when you grew up and you never became anything more than a ‘once was’.
Personally, I LOVED high school but I loved it because I didn’t have responsibilities. I didn’t have to worry about bills and work. My friends were always around where now we live hours away from one another. The comradery that we had was unmatched. The parties we threw were insane and there were little consequences to our actions. I was a huge drinker and partier, I went to more bars under the age of 18 than after 21. Life was just a party with little to lose. That’s the part that I miss. Just the constant fun. Now I have to be an adult and do adult things that suck. However, I have money now and I get to do things I could never do in high school. But a part of me still misses the simpler times. I do want to clarify that I did not have a normal high school experience, it was more like the average college experience so I have to be clear, I should NOT have been doing the things I was doing at 13-18 but it was fun.
It’s certainly odd. Teenagers aren’t known for their cheerfulness.
For me, high school was the worst time of my life. Even today, more than 30 years after graduation, I get knots in my stomach thinking about high school.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing if you look back fondly on that part of your life. However, if you are always reminiscing and saying things like “back in high school I could throw a football over them mountains” like Uncle Rico yeah you probably are pretty lame especially if you haven’t grown as a person. I know dudes I went to high school with that are the exact same, it’s like come on dude, time to grow up ya know?
“You peaked in high school” is more about the people who stopped accomplishing anything of worth since then, and become adults of low worth, in my opinion. I was very happy in high school, because I was a child. My parents took care of me and provided me with unconditional love, met all my needs, and all I was responsible for was doing well at school, which I excelled at. Adult life is hard, we have tons of responsibilities and it’s up to you to meet your own needs. It doesn’t mean you can’t be happy, but it takes work and a lot of smart choices which can be hard to make.
Peaked isn’t in reference to happiness. It’s about their success, respect, popularity, who they are as a person. Peaked in high school means you’ve been on a downhill slide ever since.
Most people are nostalgic about certain aspects of high school. Most people would not go back to those times though, because they grew up.