Teenager Years Essay, Research Paper
People who are nostalgic about childhood, were obviously never children.
Few people can remember the truth about adolescence. Their minds “censor”
their memories; and have them believe that being a teenager was was one big
party, free of cares and responsibilities. Well let me say this, you couldn+
t be more wrong if you had a lobotomy. There aren’t that many adults around
who realise what adolescence was really like. The anguish, the fear, the
anxiety, the stress. People don’t remember those problems because they want
to forget them.
The truth of the matter is, is that being a teenager is hard, right from
the beginning, and it doesn’t get any easier. We are such easy prey for big
name companies who advertise using the pressure of popularity, looks and
sex to force us to buy their product that, as it turns out, we never wanted
or needed in the first place. Our lives are filled with stress. One of the
greatest sources of pressure is school. Where we are herded like cattle
from room to room, chewing on our cud, while the hay of knowledge is force
fed to us as we are trying our hardest to gulp it down as more and more is
shovelled in. Another great source of pressure is ourselves. We try our
hardest to be accepted among a certain group or circle. Whereas most of the
time we are rejected and we become depressed. Depression, another problem,
along with ignorance and apathy that thwarts our lives. A wise man when
questioned about his view on ignorance and apathy, said “I don’t know, and
I don’t give a damn.
We find outlets for our emotions through either art, poetry or music, being
the three most common. There are thousands of poems floating around written
by bitter or depressed teenagers that are never recognised as works of art.
Another form of escape for teenagers is, unfortunately, suicide. It is
alarming how high the teen suicide rates have risen over the past decade.
Yet, it is comforting that there are support groups and counsellors
available now to aid teens through their troubles. Because no one wants to
see a life full of promise and potential end abruptly because of a little
sorrow in one kid’s life. Another reason for teen suicide is their home
life. The teenager gets caught in the middle of an argument between their
parents, and they take the blame personally. This is not right. Sometimes
the child is beaten or abused and is forced to run away into the streets,
where they become homeless, and sometimes abducted. Sometimes they just die
in a back alley during a cold winter+s night, and they are never missed. At
sixteen, a teenager knows about suffering, because he himself has suffered,
but he barely knows that other beings also suffer.
Although, some teenagers face their problems. They plod along through
school. Some of them get after-school or weekend jobs. They learn
responsibility. Eventually, they enter adulthood and the work force.
Successful, confident, and eager to work. They lead their lives using the
knowledge they swallowed throughout their education and the power they
gained. But not long after, they forget about the dips and drops of their
adolescence and become somewhat hypocritical when they go up to teenagers
and say “These are the best years of your life”, or “What responsibility?
You’ve got it easy”. These lines are heard much too often.
Hopefully, it can only get easier for teenagers to cope with the world and
to live to their full potential. Where a teenager can wade through the jaws
of advertisers, the popularity contest, their parents, and most of all,
depression+s cold claws. For, up until now, it never occurred to anyone
anywhere that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.