Teenage years. You can think of the cliché phrases and themes that accompany the trifling years of adolescence. The decision making, the insecurities, the struggles to find your place in this wide world. I remember being in grade school and looking up to the older kids, the "teenagers." The word held this captivating novelty. I wished I could be as cool as them, they had it figured out. And to a degree that's still true. I still look up to those a bit older and a bit cooler, we all do.

But how did no one tell me? How did I fail to miss it? Being a teenager and growing up is SO much more. People don't tell you just how hard it is. Sure, balancing aspects of life becomes difficult and your hormones and blah blah. But I wasn't ready. You think you have it all under control and everything is figured out. But then you're sitting on your bedroom floor at four a.m. doing your homework or pull an all nighter working on a project. You're falling asleep in class. Getting good grades gets more difficult. You're constantly sleep deprived, and everyone and everything is demanding your full attention. You feel as if you haven't been carefree in years, and although that may be an exaggeration, you truly feel inescapable stress. People ask you what's wrong and the almost robot-like response is "just tired."

You need to be making the best decisions all the time because this is the most incremental time in your life. These four years determine the next 40. But how can you be making the absolute best decisions? You're struggling to make it through the school week. Your family needs you to give it more, school needs you to give it more, your social life is in full blast and your friends want you to be with them more than ever. There are far too few hours in the day and a seemingly growing expanse of things to do. You begin to feel exhausted both mentally and physically, and think what now? What do you do? You put off that lab report and take the first nap in weeks. You need that sleep. You miss your friends and go out when you could be studying. You skip that practice. You have so many things you need to be doing and need to be done perfectly that sometimes you choose to do none of them.

That perfect life that teetered so dangerously balanced is in jeopardy of slipping away. You are that student that was once so put together. You live in constant fear that you have become the typical lazy teenager. And that people will judge you for it. Parents are upset. Teachers scoff and act incredulous that something like this could have happened to their student. But these things came about because you tried TOO hard. You gave too much. No one seems to understand it. You tried to fit in too much, gave school your all and left nothing for yourself. And the best part? None of this will matter in a few years.

After graduation, these people you care so much about will slowly vanish. You will only be left with the overbearing consequences of these decisions. Everything is changing, and you feel you have no control. How many times a week does an adult or peer ask you about your future plans. Those plans that you have no idea what they might be. You might be one of the few that thinks they have it figured out, you might answer and say "radiologist" or "veterinarian" but do you really have it all figured out? Are you really making the exact best decisions to lead you to your future? It's hard. It's so hard. You become so caught up in the rum dum of high school life. Class to class. What was happening on Twitter last night. How did these things become important to you?

When asked what you enjoy doing in your free time and what your dreams and aspirations are, how is it that you can't answer? You don't know what you do for fun anymore. Why wasn't there a warning? STOP. Your life is about to become incredibly difficult. But not all days are like these. There will be periods of sunshine and friends. You'll get those A's on those tests and do well on that essay, but deep down somehow you've lost yourself, and those things aren't important anymore. Success in school no longer means how much you have learned and grown, but is represented by a percentage. Grades are all that matter. Personal worth and success is represented numerically. The extent to which grades are emphasized is sickening. Your teenage years were supposed to be the years that you had only begun to discover who you were but now you have no idea.

You think, how did my seemingly good decisions lead me to this? This overwhelming stress and cluelessness. Where did I go wrong? Decisions become patterns. Good leading to more good and bad leading to worse. You see a man outside of Perkins holding a sign that says "anything helps" and wonder what kind of decisions did he make to get to that point? This decision making process seems like a roadmap. Each choice leading to a new ultimate destination. You may have a vague idea of what you want your final destination to be, but no idea how to get there. What turns to take. You fear taking a wrong turn and ending up at a dead end. But what we sometimes seem to forget is that we can back up and learn.

This sounds silly. Of course we know we can turn around when we make a wrong turn, but this thought process is one that happens all the time. Decisions lead to consequences, some you can't change or fix. So you struggle to make the right decisions. Struggle so much you may choose not to make any decisions. If you stop making choices, this minimizes the chances of making the wrong ones. You avoid them at all costs. I was watching a show once, the main character was conflicted and faced a very difficult decision. He chose neither, but ended up worse off than he had begun. Worse than if he had chosen either one of those very difficult decisions. He compared it to picking plums. You're hungry and sitting at the bottom of the tree trying to decide which fruit to eat. You try and try to pick the absolute perfect piece of fruit, but whilst weighing your options and trying to find the perfect plum you starve.

This leads me to my final point. I wish someone had told me that it's okay to make mistakes and to fail. Do not lose sight of where you're going and where you want to be. These failures don't mean it's the end, sure they can be discouraging but pick yourself up. One failure doesn't mean that there won't be any more successes. It is not humanly possible to make every right decision ALL the time. It just isn't. So don't be so hard on yourself. Instead of becoming discouraged by these failures and difficulties, learn from them, grow and flourish. Go out and do exactly what you want to do instead of getting caught up in your head. You're the only one keeping you from your dreams.