Here’s my take on being a teenager in 2017~
Being a teenager in 2017 can mean so many things. Our lives are based around the concepts of acceptance, opportunity and rejection resulting in questions beyond our comprehension and doubt in our identities and self worth.
Acceptance is such a great obstacle for us because it plays such a huge role in every decision we make. We always think of what others are going to say, which affects our morals and our identity itself. We choose our clothing based on current trends, our body type on the “perfect body” and our personalities on what others think is sexy or generally attractive.
This need for acceptance seeks to find opportunity and social advancement or to simply just “fit in, “whether it be to get into the group of “popular kids” or to win scholarships to prove our value. We are raised and socialized to be the smartest and to be the highest achievers. Yeah, there are a few “outliers” who choose to refrain from the contest known as life, but even by doing that, they are creating their own sort of group where a similar process begins.
We try to establish our identities based on what others want from us, not what we want for ourselves.
Rejection. Rejection is literally the greatest learning curve that we might face. From being rejected by our crushes, AND their closest friends because loyalty means everything, to our classmates and peers when we get a bad mark, or by everyone else around us when we do something immoral or just generally disliked (which in turn can be seen as a reasonable judgement by others). In this time, we truly learn who we really are, how we actually feel about life and how to cope with our problems or heal from them.
Loyalty means everything.
For some of us, we aren’t so lucky. Our social expectations begin to define us-the failing grade is who we are. We fight depression, anxiety and pain, in fear that it’ll consume us. Our walls grow higher and higher and it seems like the pain never goes away. Our mental health deteriorates and it takes one suicide of a person that we can relate to in order to realize that our life is worth something.
This is our reality today and we all need help to be the best that we can, we need to do this together and we need to break the divides that bind us.
Making Time For Me 