“Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” — Virginia Satir

Nothing about being a teenager is ever easy. However, not all of it is a terrible experience either. I can only hope when my little sisters have gotten to this stage in life, I can understand what she is going through.

The hardest part of being a teenager is having balance. As a teenager, you want to have fun and hang out with your friends. This is the typical teenage dream. We see this false teenage lifestyle displayed on television screens all the time. However, for a typical college-bound student, academics and school are extremely important in your life. As teenagers, we have these expectations from our parents to live by and we want to please them. In addition to our academics, most of us have to get jobs to assist our families in paying bills. As teenagers, we now have to maintain a job and keep our grades decent with the chance to go to college and the hope to not lead the same working-middle class lifestyle as our parents. This is what our parents want for us. We must essentially balance all of this without falling apart. I think this is what makes teenagers the strongest age group out there.

The best part of being a teenager is having the best of both worlds. You get the best of being an adult by making your own decisions about your future, but also the best of childhood by choosing to have fun and live in the moment. As a teenager, we recognize that every passing day is monumental and that eventually, we will no longer be the kids dancing crazily around the gymnasium. We will never have the chance to innocently fall head over heels for a guy or girl without thinking ahead for the future. We won’t be able to have car racing contests with each other to see who reaches a destination first.

Being a teenager is the last stop before adulthood, which will explain why we do some of the stupidest things. It’s like when men reach a mid-life crisis and try to do spontaneous things because they are realizing their life is growing shorter. As teenagers, our lives of childish games and antics are coming to a close, so we do things because we will no longer be able to when we become adults. As I am I preparing for the close of my teenage years, I would advise my younger siblings to do anything they can in high school and don’t have regrets. High school is short, so they should make the most of it.