So, you’re having an existential crisis ... the teenager’s ultimate guide

Hey, you’re a teen, your days are supposed to be full of inconsequential anxieties about going makeup free for the wilderness backpacking trip, bizarre facial hair, the yearbook photo, and the strange wealth of belly-button fluff you’ve been accumulating of late. So what’s with the bummed out feeling you’ve had since class last week?

First, your physics teacher explained the finite capacity of the sun to incinerate the gas of which it consists, and the inevitability that it would one day exhaust its own mass, exploding in on itself, and ending life on Earth.

Then, your geography teacher showed a PowerPoint of climate change around the globe - salinity problems, soil erosion, rising oceans, melting ice shelves, flooding and extreme weather events - and put forward his hypothesis that the extinction of millions of insect and animal species due to climate change may dwindle food supplies to the point that humans go extinct in as little as a hundred years.

Then, you tune into the Discovery Channel for a special on the cosmos ... hey, did anyone know that the universe is expanding? Yeah, one day it will expand so far that it collapses in on itself ending all existence ... anyone want a fruit rollup?

Sit tight, I’ve been there. Simply follow my five-step guide for overcoming existentialism.

1. So what is existentialism anyway? You’ve been aware of it your whole life. Existentialism is thinking about why you’re here. But if reality television has begun to lose all meaning, you’ve reached an advanced stage of existential distress. If you’ve ever walked outside in your Where The Wild Things Are pajamas, looked up at the stars and asked the sky, “Who am I?” then you’ve experienced a mini crisis of identity. Repeating your name over and over and over until it loses all meaning won’t help. Instead, I recommend watching The Goonies - or Spaceballs if things are really bad.

2. How can you avoid existential crises? You need to dull down your philosophical thought, and focus on smaller, more mundane details. The best guides to mundane details are your parents, who have to deal with finicky chores like keeping a steady supply of three varieties of milk, planning meals, changing the oil on the car, buying fridges, and insuring the family. Ask your mother to help her balance the checkbook, or write a list of shopping ingredients from her weekly meal plan. Your concerns about the wellbeing of the universe will quickly dim once you’re immersed in dividing up a week's worth of ground beef into individual freezer bags.

3. Whose fault is existentialism? Although existentialism has existed in different forms through the centuries, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers from Europe are predominantly to blame. Here in America, we were all perfectly happy contemplating the Dairy Queen value day specials until the French alerted us to the possible meaninglessness of language. And then the Germans chirped in to remind us that our entire concept of the world exists in our own heads - like we have the room! Take your cue from Australians, who famously abandoned existential thought to focus on digging really big holes at the beach, and to race shopping carts through empty parking lots: sunshine can’t get you down.

4. Is there life after existentialism? Believe it or not, being really, really busy is a great way to overcome existentialist preoccupations. Remember how your older cousin Ryan went through that Buddhist phase a couple of years ago, changed his name to “Chikyo,” and wore only purple robes? Now he’s back working for a corporation and saving up for a really sweet cappuccino maker (and calling himself “Ryan”). Ryan simply forgot to worry about the fundamentals of his existence. You can too! I suggest taking on internships, extra credit classes and demanding co-curricular sports like crew to distract you while existentialism makes its getaway.

5. Is there an upside to freaking out about my existence? Actually, yes! Some of the world’s greatest comedy comes from making fun of just how silly everything is. Take, for example, the breeding of handbag-sized dogs, without which we would never have had designer dog handbags. And egg separators, which are kind of a joke all in themselves.

If all else fails, karaoke is to be used in emergency circumstances for stubborn bouts of existentialism.