Audience: High school teens in grade 12
Purpose: To relate and let everyone know that everyone is stressed too.
Everyone that is in high school will know what I am talking about. It feels like everything that happens to us now and the decisions we make now are the most important in our lives. It feels as if the whole world is looking at us waiting for us to make the wrong decision, at that very moment we just wish all the stress would go away and you could rewind back ten years to the days where nothing stressed you out, the days where you could come home from school and your only worry was what show to watch. Not the two assignments you have due, the three tests to study for. To top it all off, you work until ten o’clock and it all has to be done for tomorrow.
With that being said, our parents are the best people to give us advice and help us with this difficult translational stage in our young adult life. They want the best for us and will do anything to motivate us to do so. It feels like they won’t give us a break. They nag us to save more money, do our best in school, and even when we do they always say, “that 98% should be a 100%.” They think that we are superheroes and we can do it all. Technology has become such a large distraction, no matter what we are doing our phone is with us. It will be ringing our dinging and always distracting us, yet we continue to keep it glued to our hip, it’s just how our generation has grown up. It is almost an addiction that we subconsciously feed into. Expectations of us are so high and we just need the encouragement without the constant pushing from behind to move forward at a speed that we aren’t ready for.
Some may say that we need that constant pushing from behind in order for us to do our best, but there is a happy medium for the amount of push that we need in order to succeed. Too much push may result in retaliation and success will not happen and if it does it will not be the best. When we are pushed too much we shut down we get mad with the gentle nudge that has turned into a full on shove and although it is in the right direction we hate it. We want to have some say in what we do. If we are told where to go and how to get there chances are we’ll get there, but everyone will get there differently because we are not the same… At all.
Personally, I am extremely thankful for what my mom has done for me in the amount of encouragement that she has given me because I feel that I am doing the best that I possibly can but I can’t wait for my life to start, and for the schooling to be done.
On the other hand, the good old days look good too: the playing on the beach all day every day all summer rather than working, playing with friends and staying out until only the street lights guide you home. These are the days that all of the wishes would never end, no matter what we did when we were younger, but that’s not reality. Reality is waking up, going to school, working and then coming home to do homework. Hopefully, you have a few minutes to socialize after you have gone non-stop all day.
All I know is that growing up is a huge reality check and you just have to keep telling yourself it will get better because it will. Parents are right when they tell us that this is the hardest time of our lives and remember it’s happening to all of us. You aren’t alone.