Tag: teenagers

  • We’re all searching for home

    We’re all searching for home

    Remember, at some point someone also looked at you in your childhood and thought, “Damn, is this what the future looks like for humanity?”

    Our children have the best of us and the worst of us, and somewhere between those ends they form their own unique character.

    If you hope to understand them, you need to begin by understanding yourself.

    The same way that you didn’t raise yourself, neither did they.

    Therefore, when looking for answers about their behaviour, there is no reason to look any further than the people who have the greatest influence in their lives, their parents, or those fulfilling such parental roles.

    And if you’re a single parent, don’t assume that absent parents don’t hold such influence.

    Often, they hold more influence than the one who stuck around.

    Dealing with the influence of a problematic parent who is present is easier than figuring out the impact of the parent who is absent.

    Either way, understanding is more important than judging.

    Children behave badly when they struggle to find an emotionally safe space for themselves in this world.

    Understanding how this manifests in their behaviour is the secret to raising an adult with a healthy self-esteem, or a troubled child in an adult’s body with adult privilege.

    And don’t forget that you’re raising an adult, not a child.

    So speak to the human behind that bad behaviour and don’t only focus on correcting, through discipline and consequence management, the bad behaviour.

    If you only focus on discipline, you’ll lose the human and repeat the cycle of the problematic parent who themselves also continue to struggle for their place in this world.

  • A few random thoughts

    The ‘anything goes’ mentality is far more extremist than those that stand by moderation. It requires an extremist to allow anything to pass as acceptable without restraint, whereas it requires conscious thought, conviction, and balance to apply one’s mind to moderation. Yet the duplicity of society would incline you to believe that those that seek moderation are extremists, whilst the liberals are the free thinkers. Free thinking is often a phrase brandished about by those that seek affirmation and acceptance rather than those that are willing to stand for what they believe in without fear of ridicule or earning the ire of those they admire. 

    What’s worse is when this same thinking of supposed extremism is passed down to each following generation, resulting in ever more wayward teenagers with misguided passions. At some point, a generation dropped the baton. What should have been passed down as ageless wisdom was abandoned in the name of liberalism and social freedom, and none of the subsequent generations have been willing to stop the rot. For this reason, we find ourselves amongst teenage sages and pubescent gurus, neither of which have had sufficient life experiences to become the authorities they pretend to be on life, love, and philosophy. Such misguidance cannot be blamed on the students, but rather on the absence of teachers. 

    In the absence of role models and leaders, the youth are left to fend for themselves under the delusion of guidance from adults who are often too self-absorbed to realise that they are failing in their duty to raise adults, not children. Adults are often so insecure about their own worth, that they’re more focused on earning the social acceptance of their children by trying to be ‘cool’ parents, while the kids are distracted by their ‘cool-ness’ only to realise that they are ill prepared for life. 

    The inevitable result is the proliferation of labels that abdicate responsibility for our state of mind, and result in people living out the expectations of society based on the label attached to the specific permutation of their insecurity, rather than just realising that it is nothing more than an insecurity due to lack of knowledge or guidance that leaves us with so many troubled souls. Before we try to label the mindset of others that act out their insecurities in cryptic ways, we should make a simple but sincere effort to understand the source of insecurity that pretends to be bipolar, borderline, or any other contemporary term used to appease the conscience of absent parents. 

  • Disordered Minds

    For those of you that had a good laugh at my expense regarding my niece’s association between her topic for a speech at school and me, I thought I’d share the final product of what I wrote for her. The actual topic was Disordered Minds and not Destructive Minds. I’m still not too keen on the association though. There’s some subtle self-indulgence given that she is not aware of this blog of mine, so I included a few of my own quotes in the third person, in the hope of indoctrinating her with my ramblings. 🙂

    I’m eighteen. It’s that age when I believe I have all the answers and grow frustrated at the stupidity of the world. It’s also that age when the intensity of my emotions often overpowers my sense of reason. Worse still, it’s that age when the government believes that by having existed for this long, I am supposedly capable of making important life-altering decisions for myself. But nonetheless, it is an age full of passion, often misguided, but always full of desire to change the world. I’ve lived an interesting life, often with more challenges than most, but those challenges have shaped me into who I am today.

    This realisation of self has not come easily. It has come at the expense of significant sacrifices and often tough choices. Before you dismiss me as being smug or conceited, hear what I have to say, then reflect on it, and lastly be brutally honest with yourself about the truth of it within the context of your own life.

    When faced with the prospect of having to write a speech on a selection of topics made available to me, I couldn’t decide between Disordered Minds or True Love. This confusion arose not only because I can often relate to both, but also because I see so much genius being wasted around me. True love is often quoted as being the trigger for much insanity in this world. This world is still a largely undiscovered space for me, although having access to Google often fools me and many of my peers into believing that we have acquired a level of wisdom that elevates us beyond many adults in our lives. However, we fail to realise the difference between the acquisitions of knowledge, versus the acquisition of wisdom. So I won’t assume to be an authority on true love, which leaves me with no other option but to write about that which plagues me most, a disordered mind.

    “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”

    This quote by Kurt Vonnegut reminds me of the reality of life as a teenager. Allow me to repeat that. A sane person to an insane society must appear insane. There is wisdom in this beyond what is immediately obvious. One of the points this raised for me is that in my quest to determine the course of my life, I often fail to realise that I may not be using the correct point of reference against which to determine the soundness of my decisions. Having the correct point of reference makes the difference between peace and chaos, or intelligence and stupidity. I also realised that my point of reference must be aligned with the value system that I want to live by. But this would mean that I would need to have established my value system before choosing, or else my choice will be grossly misinformed.

    Consider this. Would you watch the evening news or Isidingo* to determine the state of reality in South Africa? Although I must admit that with all the shenanigans by politicians these days, Isidingo is not far off. But seriously though, by extension, it would be foolish of me to look to other similarly troubled teenagers for direction on how to lead my life, when they’re obviously grappling with the same or similar issues as I am. This is what I mean by choosing my points of reference.

    Being bombarded with nonsensical and often inappropriate adult themes in movies, advertising, and promotions of all kinds, it makes it easy to assume that what we see around us is the only reality there is. If we just scratched very lightly beneath the surface, we’ll quickly witness how it all falls apart. Most of our choices are driven by a single feeble motivator; that is social acceptance. More often than not, I see people doing things they despise simply because their need for acceptance is greater than their need for self-respect.

    “Of all the things we take for granted in life, our power of choice is probably the most abused gift we’ll ever receive.”

    These are the words of a blogger that goes by the name of ‘Cynically Jaded’.  There’s one more thought that the same blogger shared that I believe is most appropriate right now:

    “There are two things in this world that should never define you. Society, and age.”

    Disordered minds are those that cave in to peer pressure and forget what they stand for. Disordered minds are a social liability. Be true to who you are, and remember that only those that stood apart managed to change the world, because those that tried to fit in faded into the background of the crowds that tried to be just like everyone else. Normal is over rated. I’d rather be unique.

    *Isidingo – South African soapie that often deals with topical issues affecting the average South African.

  • Life’s Lessons

    Our life’s experiences don’t always leave a sweet after taste, but it always strengthens our senses to appreciate so much that the less-trialled may take for granted. I sometimes come across individuals that are matured well beyond their years, and my thoughts are usually ambivalent about their state.

    Do I feel happy for them that they have acquired an appreciation for life at such a tender age, or do I decry the hardships and struggles that they were already exposed to whilst others their age were pre-occupied with petty decisions about social circles and fashion fads?

    Perhaps they’re not at such a tender age after all. Perhaps society has, in its insatiable self-loathing and insecurity, stripped our youth of their maturity and instead caused children to appear as sensual adults. We’ve robbed them of their sense of wholesomeness and modesty and replaced it with an angst that even we don’t know how to unravel.

    Of all the teenagers and young adults that I’ve encountered in my life, the ones with the most grave misgivings about life were either spiritually void, or subscribed to a spiritual code out of fear or obligation, rather than conviction, which I guess leaves them spiritually void anyway. Spirituality is constantly being attacked out of sheer ignorance with science being presented as a dismal substitute.

    It’s just sad.

  • What is wrong with society?

    Society’s definition of “beautiful” is having a flat stomach, big boobs, big butt, long hair, and tan sexy skin. Because of this, teenagers don’t think they’re good enough anymore. They don’t think they’re being accepted. 10 year old girls think they’re fat. 11 year olds cut. 12 year olds stop eating. 13 year olds wake up in the morning and stare at themselves in the mirror; pointing out every little imperfection. Society is also teaching girls at a young age to wear mini skirts, short shorts, and belly shirts- which is now leading to sexual activity. 10 year olds being pressured into having a boyfriend. 11 year olds making out. 12 year olds giving head. 13 year olds aren’t virgins, and leading them to becoming an emotional wreck. Society is killing the teenager. Reblog this if you agree. Reblog this, if you’re willing to take the stand to do whatever it takes to change this.