Society "Saved" the Teenager

The past few days I have been talking about little personal goals, not really anything big or important to anyone else. But, today, I want to talk about a big dream for the world, and what I hope it will be like one day. My dream is for our society to not have such high expectations. I don’t think I speak just for myself when I say that I have many insecurities about how I look or act.

 But, why do we have all these problems that we find with ourselves? I think it’s because we worry so much about how we look to someone else. Because of the society we live in, there is this image of how we should look. The person we see is has a perfect body, perfect face, perfect hair… and perfect everything else. Then, we look at ourselves in the mirror with our imperfect features, and think that we’re not good enough for everyone else. I guess this isn’t true for everyone, but I know that many people aren’t happy with themselves at one point or another. I’ve seen a lot examples of it: the girl with curly hair wishes for straight hair, while the girl with straight hair envies the other girl’s curls, and the shy person wants so badly to be outgoing, while the popular and outgoing person secretly wishes for the quiet life of a shy person.

Then there’s also the fact that we compare ourselves to every other person out there. It’s kind of impossible not to, when everywhere you turn there’s a picture of a super model with flawless (and obviously edited) features. Like, when I go out in public with anyone, I always look in the mirror and think, “What will someone think of me in this outfit?” or something like that. I don’t know why… I guess it’s because I know that when I’m somewhere, I “people watch” and wonder about what that person’s story is. I try not to judge people from how they look, but I do admit that I do it sometimes. When you see someone wearing designer jeans and shoes and obviously wearing expensive things, the conclusion you would probably come to was that they were rich, and maybe even bratty or stuck-up. But, if you really think about it, you could be totally wrong. Maybe they’re actually very poor, and their family all saved up for these designer items, and now this girl is so excited to wear everything so she wears them all at the time. Then, back at her house, her closet is filled up with clothes from target and Wal-Mart. But maybe she’s actually very happy, happier than people who are always worrying about how they look to other people. Sometimes, you have to realize that it doesn’t matter how “perfect” you are, if you be yourself and convince yourself that there are reasons to be happy, you will be happy.

Words can hurt. This constant judgment of people has lead to the self-harm of millions of people, and so many of these people are teenagers. I think this is because we care so much so much about what other people think, really because most of us haven’t found our true self yet. Once, I heard this saying, “Society killed the teenager.” It’s kind of true, kids would not want to hurt themselves if it weren’t for the expectations of our society. Personally, I haven’t really thought about self-harm or suicide. I do occasionally feel so fed-up and done with everything that I wish I don’t wake up in the morning, but I really don’t want to die. I know that might seem very shocking to a lot of people, since at school I seem like this bubbly, energetic, and smiling girl (most of the time). Usually those smiles and laughs are real, but sometimes for other people, behind a smile can be so much sadness. But, they put on that fake smile, because the world also expects us all to be happy all the time. I also know that sometimes you want to act kind of sad for a minute or two, someone immediately accuses of you of seeking attention.

So, it basically seems like no one is ever happy with their life, or themselves. This is mostly because of these high standards set by society. I hope that one day we can learn to love ourselves for who we are, and not for what other people think. One day, maybe, society could save the teenager.

I'm very sorry for how long this is... I did not plan to write this much...