Meet Jesse, Lexa, Amani and Cherie. One about to graduate college, one with two years left to go-due to two separate gap years-one who left college after her first year and one who has been out of college for a few years.

We had a fascinating conversation. Here are some the key takeaways:

• Success seems to be defined only by how much esteem, recognition and money you will have in your chosen profession.
• The only definition of success that has ever really been presented to us in the academic world is based on grade point average and how many extra curricular activities you have participated in.
• Having time outside of/after school helped me to find myself. Now success=being happy, having close friendships and feeling that I am evolving and growing as a human being.  It's about how I feel rather than what I can present to people.
• The more well-off my friends are, the more stress they feel about achieving great things as defined by society.
• The anxiety about achievement starts in Middle School-you feel you have to start getting serious about grades and assessments. No time to do things that are just for fun or to just be a kid.
• They feel much less pressure now in their 20s than they felt at 16-they don't feel they need to have everything figured out.
• Parents should put trust in their kids that they’ll figure it out.

Meet Felicia, Caroline, Chris and Daniella-four High School seniors (when I spoke with them last Spring). They all went to the same magnet school in suburban New Jersey.

Here are some of the questions I asked them:

• How do you define success and where did that definition come from?
• How’s your relationship with your phone?
• What was the college application process like for you?
• Are you able to talk about mental/emotional health with your parents
• What would you say, in retrospect, to your middle school self?

I hope you enjoy getting to know them and that you find our conversation as enlightening and interesting as I did.

Meet Lauren, Luca and Anna: One High School Sophomore, One High School Junior and one College Freshman.

All from different parts of the country.

All trying to find that balance between being a high-achieving student and taking time to enjoy life and get to know themselves.

I talked with these kids  about how they define success and how society has defined success FOR them-and whether or not the two go together. These definitions-and the inherent anxieties that accompany them-seem to be handed over to our kids at an increasingly early age-maybe 5th or 6th grade. The louder the drumbeat becomes, the more difficult it is for them to spend the time and the effort on activities (or LACK of activities) that might truly enable them to discover themselves, their passions, their interests and the qualities and values that truly define long-term life satisfaction.

They are encouraged to self-define at such a young age-without really knowing who they are or what they want. And all of this pressure and expectation is hurting them-they are sleep-deprived, they are anxious and sometimes depressed. 

They hesitate to speak with their parents about these struggles because they fear that parents won't understand, or won't be able to give them the support that they need, or perhaps they will just cause their parents stress-which is the last thing they want to do.