When I got ready to graduate high school and those four years came to a close, I constantly thought about how nice it was going to be to leave the petty social crap behind. Is it sad that that was one of my biggest excitements as I started a new chapter? Possibly. But after 4 years of making sad attempts at following trends, having my heart squashed a handful of times, changing friendships faster than I changed my socks and being 'cool' without being ‘cool enough’? I was READY for it.
Until ‘leaving it behind’ became as distant as the high school memories. The books close, the bell rings, the caps get thrown in the air; but as we age -- and start to feel old as the months since high school turn into years -- I've come to see that high school never really ends. At least, the social trials of it don't. Throughout my many epiphanies, I've come to see that it was never really high school that made people suck. But simply, the fact that people sometimes suck.
Yes, I know how jaded I seem.
Now, years after graduation, I still see bullies being bullies. I log onto Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and see that we still use personal attacks when we get angry or when someone disagrees with us. Hell, we’re belittling each other all over the comment sections. We still try to look cooler than we really are. We still show so little of who we actually are to our peers. We still judge people (maybe not for their backpacks anymore, but I digress). We still love the juicy details. We still find ourselves wanting to be liked, no matter how tall we stand as we say we ‘don't care’. We still have cliques. We still leave people out. We still laugh until we're at the butt of the joke.
We're all a little guilty of being big high schoolers. But what I once thought was a phase, I’ve come to see is kind of just humanity.
Again, too jaded?
Sure, our friends may have changed, our relationships may have disintegrated, insight may have been gained, and in many ways we have matured. We do taxes now. We sign our own permission slips. We finance cars. We have student loans, apartments, and grocery shopping. We have friends from all over, and experiences interesting enough to share on social media. But at the end of the day, we still have that innate need to fit in. We still forget to treat others the way we want to be treated. To be blunt, we still sometimes suck; and we were a little naive and a bit too gullible when we thought that we had graduated from the pettiness of the world when we got that diploma.
But just like in high school, there’s the chance to be above it. And it’s even more possible than we think. When we remember how powerful our words are and use our newfound adult powers in a good way, we can change the world.
