Young Writers Society

Life used to be so simple. School was easy, you could play all day (except for the chores of course which now seem so menial) you’d eat a good meal, have two loving parents tuck you in at night and your mom would sing you to sleep. You’d wake up, eat a good breakfast (you couldn’t beat Lucky charms!) your mom would hand you your lunchbox and you’d head to school to repeat the cycle. That was when you were little.

Junior high. ah. Wonderful junior high! When your hormones took over and your days were filled with constantly teasing girls and beating each other up playfully (you often hurt someone, or got hurt in the process) and you got into sports if that was your thing. If it was it became your everything. Shoes of your favorite stars, posters on the wall, anything you could get. Then there was all the really weird stuff. And your parents either were the cool type that explained it and didn’t make it a big deal, or you found everything out on your own. By people who weren’t telling it to you for the same reason. Words began to have double meanings, suddenly you realized that you were just as smart as your teachers; you were DEFINITELY smarter than your parents.

But life was still pretty simple. You didn’t have to pay for anything, didn’t have to think about your future, worry about getting your license, or actually looking presentable at banquets and receptions. You strived for attention, but then didn’t know how to handle it, sure, but in the long run it didn’t mean that much that all the girls in your class hated (or loved) you because of how popular you were among your classmates. In a few years they’d go to some other school any way, more than likely.

But then you entered high school. All of a sudden you were thrust at the bottom of the food chain (and sometimes it felt like people really were out to eat you!) Classes actually were getting hard, you were the bench warmers for your team, in the middle stage of life where you wanted to do stuff, but you couldn’t go anywhere so you found your outlet in other things like video games and sports and music. Or worse. Because that’s when you started to pay attention to that girl, and then you became bipolar. when she was around, dude you were the coolest cat, and those losers trying to hang out with you? Pff. You had dropped them a loooong time ago! You got sweaty and nervous when she was around, but finally would muster up the courage to go talk to her.

As you got into the upper ranks once again as a sophomore and then junior, you realized how unprepared you were to actually go anywhere with the relationship (and that’s if you stuck with one girl which is highly unlikely). Life got even sloooooower. Getting your license took a while, and when you got that, man, FREEDOM! But with that came responsibilities. Jobs, insurance, college was thrust upon you (like your whole life people told you “you can be whatever you want to be”, but when college came they switched the tables on you and told you how you had to get a job that was actually useful to society so unless your dream was to become a salesperson or a company owner, you basically had to put those dreams in a chest and bury it in the ground).

All this stress started, and you had so many decisions, and suddenly your parents were too busy to help so you had to figure things out on your own, which you did but sometimes it would’ve been nice just to get some advice, a little reassurance. There was college debt, to go into it or not to go into it, and if not, then scholarships and grants, which required you to fill out loads of paperwork and write big essays.

You say what’s this all supposed to come to? What’s this, this summation of your life up until now? What’s it for? I don’t know. But maybe you can relate to it. And isn’t that all that people need sometimes? Someone who understands their predicament. Not someone who is there to tell them where to go, or who can feel what they feel, but someone who just listens. Sometimes someone who just listens is all you need. Because when you finish with your rant (It’s safe to call it that) you realize that you aren’t so bad off. Because you have a lot of privileges in this. You have the privilege to drive a vehicle, the privilege to choose your future spouse, the privilege to choose what form of education you want, the privilege to get a major in something with a trustworthy job, or the privilege to break the normal and change the future. You have the privilege of writing and reading, You have the privilege to perform physical activity,

See, when we get the focus off of our struggles, and we see all the potential and the fortune we’re blessed with, we realize that in just one day we have the privilege of doing more things than some people ever do in a lifetime. And that’s fantastic! So let’s use it for good. People say that this generation is selfish, arrogant, and wants everything without working for anything. And they are right. But they can be wrong. It’s up to you. ;)