Today teenagers in America face many hardships while enduring the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Teenage years have to be the hardest I’ve encountered so far. Could it be because I’m experientially biased? Or do I just just have enough knowledge of the world to know that I really don’t know anything for sure.

Teenage life is all about confusion and finding yourself, which is funny because that’s also what you’re expected to do in college.

What defines an adult? More importantly, what defines a teenager? On a website poll at Wedding Bee, the characteristics of a defining adult are:  Maturity Level, Financial Independence, Experience, Age, Marriage, respectively. I find this extremely interesting because maturity is such a relative term. People think being a teenager is just about getting good grades and having a balanced social life. But being a teenager is a daily game of maintaining friends, doing well in school, getting a job, dealing with family, completing homework, making time for hobbies, eating right (if not, something), extra-curriculars/activities/resume builders, a love life AND getting enough sleep to do it all again. Stress and strain are endemic to our age. Even though it may appear to come easy to some people, here’s a little secret you should know: it’s hard and confusing living in a world that expects you to grow up, be mature and excel all on your own.

Teenager Hannah_Hammock wrote on Reddit , “[the hardest part about being a teenager is] deciding what to do with my life.” I completely agree with this in that amidst all the craziness of high school and drama and schoolwork, the finality of choosing a career path is a scary thing.

You only get one life (except people who believe in reincarnation) and the decision about what you will use to give your life purpose intimidates teens, some so much that they just give up and don’t do anything productive with their lives. I personally have always struggled with fitting in. I was never was good at making/keeping friends and prefered to be independent at most times. Middle school and high school for me have been all about learning how to deal with people. A grand social experiment, if you will. College is supposed to be a whole new ballgame.

When I asked my 27-year old brother about what college would be like he said “It’s all about you, your schedule, your classes, your education, your time.” I guess it takes having to pay outrageous amounts of money to learn, for students like my brother and I to be engaged in our education.

Among other conversations we’ve shared, my big brother would tell me about life as an adult being hard. In many ways life as an adult is hard because it’s all about accepting that you’re an adult and making the transition from being a dependent to an independent free thinker.

Some people have parents who are constantly badgering them and suffocating them, which makes things even more complicated because finally when those kids go out on their own they’re either going to be completely clueless on how to function in society or they’re going to rebel and reject any and all principals their parents tried to instill in them. Luckily, my parents have been a good measure of both strict and suffocating, and laid back and chill. As I’ve gotten older they’ve allowed me more creative freedom with my life and that makes me happy. I’ve found that although I don’t like school, I love to work. Earning money is a big step for me and one of the main reasons I want to go to college is so I can have the necessary education I need to earn a good living and create a life for myself, and one day a family.

As the wise Ferris Bueller once said “life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around, you could miss it.”