In the smash hit song "I'm At Allegheny" which some alum wrote forever ago, the most catchy and funny line lies within the chorus. "I'm at Allegheny and it feels so good that a college lets me know I'm not good enough." College students all across the nation constantly stress about their classes, grades, internships, and extra curricular activities. Its true, we are designed in today's society to think we are never good enough. Society tells us that we need to go to college to get a good job but that there is also a successful way to complete college. The people who want to create art and film often go to college only to be told that they will not be famous or make money unless they go into a field where more jobs are available, like the math and science fields. Every individual needs to be better and busier than their predecessor, taking all of their time and devoting it to studying and community service and joining so many clubs that their head is spinning by the end of October of semester one. All of this adds up, but needless to say, this is just school. We are also labeled if we do not go out on the weekends and take the little free time we have to live the "college experience". Where are we supposed to get all of this time when there are only 24 hours in a day?
Today's media forces the "ideal body image" down our throats when the truth is that none of what we are seeing is real. Teenage girls develop eating disorders because they hate what they see in the mirror, while teenage boys compare these girls to women in the media all while lacing up their cleats because they need to be on a sports team to feel masculine, according to society. But they have yet to even finish growing! A male friend of mine was talking about a girl that he liked, remarking to me that she had gained weight and that he found her less attractive because of that. We are still young and growing. Even celebrities are constantly trying to better themselves. Kylie Jenner is only eighteen years old and has already gotten cosmetic surgery to change her facial appearance.
Thirty years ago, our parents never had to deal with this constant nagging by the media, because it did not exist. College was not as competitive and you didn't need to have five internships and thirty references just to get an entry-level job. The stress caused by today's everyday life just is not worth it. All the late-night studying and the club meetings and endless hours at the gym can weigh on a person so much that all they can do is lay crying on their floor at two in the morning because they feel inadequate in comparison to the person that they think they should be. This needs to stop somewhere, and it stops with you, the individual.
In the 2004 movie "13 Going On 30" starring Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo, Garner's character is a 13-year-old girl who only wants to grow up (too quickly) to be like the women that she sees in magazines. Her wish is granted and she wakes up the next morning as a thirteen-year-old in a 30-year-old's body. Those seventeen years that she missed were full of her being negative and knocking others down to make her way to the top of the heap. Now, she was "Jenna Rink, big time magazine editor." Whereas she had normally watched her figure almost compulsively and worked incredibly hard as this editor and had no regard for others, this new younger/older Jenna had her world on a string and refused to listen to what others and society told her. She lived her life as though nobody was watching, taking shopping sprees for herself and stopping in Central Park to pet dogs and eating fruit roll-ups and razzles daily. She looked at her new life the same way that her younger self would have, and that made her a happier and healthier person, which in turn caused her to be more successful.
There is nothing wrong with being your own person and not allowing yourself to fall victim to society's ideals. The happiest people are the strong ones who don't let others' opinions get to them and continue to live their lives in the way that they want to live them. Jenna Rink does not let others' opinions of her stop her from doing what she wanted to do, and her childlike enthusiasm for life is incredibly refreshing. Everyone should be more like Jenna Rink.
