Life of a Teenager

Teenage

24/02/2021, Wednesday

 

I was thinking about this issue for quite some time, but finally I am ready to post something about it. So, most of us are in our teenage, i.e. adolescence period. We all know what is teenage, a person who is between 13-19 years of age. But, I can guarantee that most of us don’t know what happens in the phase of teenage. No, I am not talking about the physical changes which everyone read in their science book.  I am talking about the psychological, mental or emotional changes which everyone experience by their own.  

 

What are the issues?

1) Mental health

Talking about mental health is still a taboo in our country. People think that mental health issues can only happen with adults, if a teenager talks about mental health, it’s just an excuse for not studying. But, mental health problems start from the age of 13. Problems like anxiety, stress, tension, self-pressure, societal pressure, ADHD  (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), sleepless nights and depression also which later leads to suicide. One in every four teenager suffers from depression, every year thousands of students attempt suicide because of academic pressure.

There are thousands of suicide stories. Like, “A student who committed suicide because he was not able to handle the pressure while preparing for JEE-Mains exam. Or an 8^th class student who gave her life because she failed in 2 subjects in her half yearly exam and many more”

The problem is very big; I have some questions to highlight that, why failure is treated as a negative thing in our society. Why are we forcing students in such an extent that, their report card has more value than their life? I am not against pushing students to perform well in their life or exams; I just want to say, don’t put burden on them, everyone is trying to give their best in their own way.

Everyone knows what success is, how to handle success but no one teaches how to handle failure. Every person should try to understand that, we fail because we make mistakes, and making mistake is a part of life which helps us to improve ourselves. Mistakes are not indiscipline.

 

 

2) Appearance

 Physical appearance is one of the main problems during teenage. Everyone is so concern about their body image which is not a bad thing. But, if your physical appearance starts affecting your mind or self-esteem, then it’s not fine. You may feel this problem when you look at someone who is somewhat better than how you look or have a better personality than you, it may be your friend, siblings or any person in your surroundings. Then it leads to jealousy, you start getting jealous to some extent with that person.

Getting jealous can be good or bad, if you are jealous with someone’s fitness and you work on yourself daily to improve yourself, it’s a positive move. But, if you are jealous with someone’s face means how beautiful she is or how smart he is, or how cute or charming, because of which you started getting jealous in wrong way and start hating yourself which later affects your self-esteem.

We have to accept one thing that is the reality. The reality of who am I as an individual. Just, stop getting negative about your looks. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and it’s true, it just depends on how people observe you. And you don’t need others opinion for feeling good about yourself, you are unique and your opinions about yourself will either built you or break you. It’s just your choice.

 

3) Love and relationships

I think that talking about love, relationship and affection is more taboo than talking about mental health in today’s society or with parents. First of all, I am not going to discuss about which age is perfect for having a girlfriend or boyfriend, it totally depends on you. But one important point, this thing should not be your first priority in life, your goal or dream should be your first priority.

I want to discuss about from where does this idea of love, relationships, girlfriend, boyfriend comes in our mind, what is the root cause. So, in our life we consume entertainment, in forms of movies, web series, TV serials, Novels, story books etc. In which, movies are the main source by which we start getting influence. Majority movies, have a common storyline in which there will be a boy (hero of the film) either in college or somewhere, he fell in love with a girl(heroine) and around this the whole story revolves. So, a 10-12 year old child who is observing everything around its surrounding gets to know about love because of it’s over exaggeration through movies.

I want to clear one thing to every single person who is reading my blog; the so called emotion which is shown in movies is infatuation not real love. Love is a journey; it can’t be expressed in 3hrs. Today, love and romance are shown as same thing but the reality is that romance is a part of love, but love can continue without romance.

 

Stop clearing your doubts or questions related to love or relationships through movies, they are just a part of entertainment not reality. And attraction is common during teenage, so stop getting worried if you are getting attracted towards someone; it’s not in your control. But, I want to clear one more thing that attraction is the byproduct of infatuation which is not love, so stop imagining your future with your crush.

Love is not about having beautiful partner or getting jealous because he/she talking with someone. The beautiful thing about love is that it lacks insecurities, both the partners are not insecure about each other; they are loyal and trustworthy even after long years of marriage.

 

I don’t have any experience about relationships, so I can’t tell you anything about it. But I admire some married couples like Sudha Murthy and Narayan Murthy, Melinda Gates and Bill Gates, Michelle Obama and Barrack Obama and many more. These couples inspire me a lot because they have a very beautiful relationship with each other; both the partners are adding some value in the society and both are very successful individually. And the best thing is, they are still together, this show how strong their bond of relationship is.

 

 

4) Knowing about the opposite gender

When I am talking about knowing the opposite gender, it means learning about the other half of world. Before moving forward, I am very much aware about the LGBTQ community, and I respect them, but just for a general view, I will be talking about male and female only.

So, I am not talking about love or relationships. My point is about having friendships, knowing each other as a person or individual. We need to learn that a boy and a girl can be friends, and it is one of the true bonds of friendship. In this friendship, you will learn many new things which help both of you to grow and improve yourself as an individual. A boy can learn lots of things from a girl and a girl can learn lots of things from boy, it just depends on the way both are connected with each other.

 

While having friendship with a girl/boy you would get to know about the other gender better in a psychological way, you will get to know how he/she feels, thinks or reacts upon certain things. (It depends from person to person, but just for a general point of view.) You will become well-mannered; you will have a broad minded thinking.

And one thing, friendship and love are different things; there is a major difference between two people in friendship and two people in love. So don’t fall for your friend and break your friendship forever.

 

 

5) Addictions  

During this age many people get addicted to alcohol, cigarette, phones, social media, TV etc. First, let’s talk about the things which everyone should avoid, i.e. smoking and drinking. Stop calling it as cool things, it’s not cool. Stop getting inspired from fictional characters of movies that looks cool while smoking and drinking; everyone is aware that it’s injurious for health. For some people, it may be an escape from the real world but they are destroying themselves from inside. Don’t do experiments with your health, it’s better not to give first try to any of these things.

 

Second comes social media, TV, phone etc. These things should be used in a limit. They are our source or entertainment, information and infotainment. It’s very important to control and set a limit to use these things because it’s a web and once you get stuck it’s very difficult to make yourself free from these things. Try to schedule these things in your routine, so that it does not affect your health. The addiction of getting addicted to anything is dangerous; everything should be done in limit.

In teenage everyone have a lot of energy, it depends on us that how we will invest or utilize our energy in certain things. If we invest ourselves in any productive work or learning new skill, it will definitely help in near future. But, if we just waste our energy in non-productive things like addictions or in things for instant gratification, it will just waste our precious time. So, It totally depends on you.

 

 

At the end

Congrats, if you have read till here. I just tried to make understand some major issues faced by teenagers, I may have not covered everything, but I tried to show some issues. I also wanted to discuss about the mental health, some changes in our mind which happens during this age.

 At last, I just want to say, try to share your thoughts or feelings with someone whom you trust, you will feel better. And try to find the answer of every question; you have in your mind.

 

 

 

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life."  -  Confucius