Dear Society:

When you’re a teenager, you are not an adult and you are not a child. You are too young to do hard things, but too old to do easy things. You are not meant to work everyday like an adult, nor are you meant to have fun everyday like a child. You are stuck in-between the spectrum of life, caught in the middle of society’s expectations as a generation that is held still by how most of the world has defined the word “Youth.”

So what are we? Where do we teenagers stand in this journey of life?

I cannot presume to speak for every living teenager in the world, but I believe it’s a thought that needs to be voiced. I have lost count of how many youths I have met who’ve described their lives in one word: Lost. Lost because we do not know where they are going. Lost because we do not know what we are doing. Lost because we feel like we are merely leaves in strong rapids that float to wherever we are taken. Lost because we are pushed and pulled by society as we are molded into this imperfect sort of perfection to meet standards that range from low to high in differing intervals. Lost because we don’t know who we are.

Doesn’t that sound like “drama” that would only come from a teenager?

“I’m lost.”

“I don’t know who I am.”

“I’m trying to find my self worth.”

“I am going through my own journey of self-discovery.”

Whatever it is we tell you, whether it be as simple as the first statement or as complex as the last, it all surmounts to one thing: We are confused. We don’t know what to do with ourselves because we have big dreams that society tells us is out of reach; we want to enjoy our youthfulness but society rains on our parade because the future is fast approaching. Our ideas, when spoken out loud, are dismissed as too juvenile, as something not credible because we have been in this world for fewer years than most adults, and apparently that translates to how much of the world a person has seen. “You’re too young for all this,” society says. But then we get into trouble for who knows what reason, and then society says “You’re too old to be doing that.” And so we must find that perfect balance, that small space that society has set aside for us, because we are not adults nor are we children, and therefore this means we have to follow society’s formula of what it means to be part of the youth.

And the formula goes something like this:

“You need to get a diploma,” society says. “You need to graduate from a good university,” society adds. “You need to study hard, sleep little, cram every single piece of knowledge in your head, memorise things you may never even use in the future, and ace exams whose answers you will probably forget after a few days; after all that I promise you will get a good job and you will earn a lot of money and you will have a family and you will be happy.”

That’s the promise, isn’t it? Happiness? It’s misery for a good number of years for a promise of happiness in the coming ones. And once the formula is applied and we teenagers welcome the promise with open arms, sometimes we realize we have been deceived, because life will only get harder from then on. Happiness seems farther out of reach because this time, there is no formula. This time, nobody really knows what to do. Then we might end up looking back and wishing we had never listened because we could have enjoyed what we had, did things we could have done, grabbed opportunities that were right there. Aside from being lost we also regret, and the two were never really a good mix to begin with. But it’s there and we’ll just have to find our way, because that’s what everyone else is doing: Finding their way along life, looking for happiness or learning to be content.

This isn’t a jibe at any age group. In fact, this isn’t a jibe at all. It is merely a voicing of hopes and fears, of thoughts that run rampant in teenagers’ minds. After everything is said and done we teenagers are all really just afraid of one thing: To follow the formula and still end up nowhere, still unhappy, and still lost, but now with the added new weight of regret because of the things we should have done when we got the chance.

I realise that all this may sound incredibly whiny. A whiny thought from a whiny teenager who is whining about life. And in a sense, that opinion is understandable: I am whining. I am whining because I believe something needs to change, but have no idea how to do it. And if I have to whine to get my point across, to at least give however small of a voice to the millions of teenagers in this world, then I will whine.

Pessimists will say it is a cruel world and therefore we should “suck it up” and move on. Optimists would say you take what you are given and make the most out of it. I don’t know which one will be the solution. I’m not sure there’s a solution at all. But regardless, all I ask is for those who read this, is to do so with an open mind. I may just be a teenager, but I am also a person who lives in this society. And though I might not have been in this world for the same number of years as most of you would have, I listen, and this is what my listening has added up to far.

To conclude, I ask whoever is reading this to change their definitions and opinions of the youth. I believe we are not too young to do great things. I believe we can reach for our dreams, and should we fail we’d love to say that we at least tried. I believe we have wisdom in some aspects even if we’re young. I believe that there are so many possibilities out there for us, if only we weren’t so crippled because of fear – fear for the future. In short, I believe we are capable of doing so much more than you believe us to be capable of…

If only you would give us the chance.

If only you would comfort those fears we have.

If only you’d try to see where we are coming from (and while you might say you’ve already been where we are, some might say times are a’changin’ and what we have now might be an entirely different journey altogether).

We trust you, and we listen to you. But maybe, we hope you could listen to us too.

Love, the Youth