The greatest days....? Riiiiiight.
Someone once said "These are the greatest days of your life". Obviously, this person never experienced real life as a teenager. We as teens deal with more stress and hardships than any other age group. We are constantly told we could be skinnier, faster, smarter, braver, more respectful; we're told we could be PERFECT. The only problem is...the people who are telling us these things...are not perfect themselves and are striving for it as we are. Why do we put so much stress on ourselves and so much pressure on each other to be the best? Because we as teens feel inadequate and want nothing more than to be accepted by others who seem better than we are. The sad thing is just that...they only "seem" better. They are dealing with inferiority as well, they just deal with it differently. Some become bullies, others become weaker and give up, and still others just fade into the background and disappear.
We have no idea the kind of pain and heartache we cause each other unless we ourselves have had to deal with the same situation. Guys these days are laughed at and mocked if they show emotion and are callled everything from "wimps" to harsher more vulgar terms, and yet as a woman I find when guys show emotions it makes them seem more approachable...more human. Girls are treated as nothing more than objects....we are prizes if we are "good looking" or "sexy", and if we aren't up to par(so to speak) we shouldn't even think about being liked, loved, or even talked to by those "higher up" than we are.
Even in our most holiest of facilities teenagers can't focus on the One who loves us for who we are on the inside, but we focus on what others think about us and our outside appearances.
We should want to look good, but it shouldn't control our every thought. Our lives have become so overthrown with the images of the "perfect" people that if we are complimented then all is right with the world, but if we are criticized then our world means nothing until the next compliment. We hold our whole self on the fragile, meaningless words of others. When will we stop caring so much what others think and start to care a little more about what we think of ourselves? The only reason people put us down and try to hurt us is because they themselves are hurting and want to make themselves look better and gain acceptance from someone "above" them. It's a vicious cycle that we could stop, but no one wants to be the first one to try and possibly be seen as something lower than that for which we strive, perfect.
Once we grow out of the teen years we start to realize what everyone else says doesn't matter as much as we thought, but as long as there are teenagers there will be those who think what everyone says about them is more important than their own thoughts and feelings about themselves. Life is never easy, but I'd sure like to back to the day where the only thing I worried about was getting cooties from the boys.
Someone once said "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". Obviously, this person never experienced life as a teenager either.
We have no idea the kind of pain and heartache we cause each other unless we ourselves have had to deal with the same situation. Guys these days are laughed at and mocked if they show emotion and are callled everything from "wimps" to harsher more vulgar terms, and yet as a woman I find when guys show emotions it makes them seem more approachable...more human. Girls are treated as nothing more than objects....we are prizes if we are "good looking" or "sexy", and if we aren't up to par(so to speak) we shouldn't even think about being liked, loved, or even talked to by those "higher up" than we are.
Even in our most holiest of facilities teenagers can't focus on the One who loves us for who we are on the inside, but we focus on what others think about us and our outside appearances.
We should want to look good, but it shouldn't control our every thought. Our lives have become so overthrown with the images of the "perfect" people that if we are complimented then all is right with the world, but if we are criticized then our world means nothing until the next compliment. We hold our whole self on the fragile, meaningless words of others. When will we stop caring so much what others think and start to care a little more about what we think of ourselves? The only reason people put us down and try to hurt us is because they themselves are hurting and want to make themselves look better and gain acceptance from someone "above" them. It's a vicious cycle that we could stop, but no one wants to be the first one to try and possibly be seen as something lower than that for which we strive, perfect.
Once we grow out of the teen years we start to realize what everyone else says doesn't matter as much as we thought, but as long as there are teenagers there will be those who think what everyone says about them is more important than their own thoughts and feelings about themselves. Life is never easy, but I'd sure like to back to the day where the only thing I worried about was getting cooties from the boys.
Someone once said "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". Obviously, this person never experienced life as a teenager either.