Teachers, parents, guardians; any sort of authorative figure. Any sort of adult for that matter. They all think the same. They all think that they know. They say they know what it's like to be a teengager; "I was young once too you know," is a phrase I've heard so many times that it doesn't even make sense any more.

They act like they know what we're all like. Many of them stereotype us. To the world, all teenagrs are moody, lazy, temperamental, troublesome and constantly hormonal. We all get drunk and high and whatever else is the "trend".
Well I'm sick of it.

When you have a problem, the adults dismiss it as being "just one of those teenage things". What they don't realise is that we don't all think the same. Out of six billion people on this Earth, they think that every single teenager has one collective mind? We don't.
We're individuals, and we think differently.

What we think now will determine the person we will grow to be. As a child, our characteristics were innocent, naive, we didn't know any better and from a young age we were taught to conform to civilistation, learn right from wrong, and so on.
As an adult, we lose all those childlike qualities; I personally feel that every adult becomes a tiny bit depressed, because you have to grow up and stop fantasising. Become part of the real world and learn how to survive. Quite often stress overcomes our minds and we lose the time and will to live in idealism. All those dreams we had as children fade; fantasies about becoming famous and rich.. or you know, an astronaut or whatever. Every child to their own. I personally think that ij itself is just a depressing theory. All the fun's been sucked out of living.

Yet that's the way it is and everyone knows this. Children are oblivious and caught up in dreams, and adults are basically, well, sufficently more depressed and far less interesting. Yet our teen years are always left out; what are we like then?

I believe our teens are the best times of our life. We get a taste of that stressful adult lifestyle that awaits our bleak futures, so that we can prepare ourselves for it. We still have dreams of high-flying jobs etc. and the sky's the limit, but it's during our teens that we really start to THINK.

Of course, some of us may be dim-witted. Not saying I'm the brightest bulb, I can be lazy in school and reluctant to put my brain into motion, but I'm not talking about thinking academically, I mean something broader.
As young children, we don't really know anything, we don't know what to think.
As adults, we have no time to think.
But as teenagers, we're more educated and we make time.
We get caught up on stupid problems, such as our appearances, exams, our love lives(or non-existent ones). But I like to think, about anything and everything. I like to analyse people. I like to imagine different aspects of the world; the world which I may never see. Instead of conjuring up what most would call a "normal" future, you know, getting a decent job, getting married, having children etc. I like to think of something brighter.
I want to be remembered. Not specifically by my name, but I want to be remembered as the girl who changed people's perspectives. The girl who changed the stereotypes. I want to travel. Do things never done before. See things never seen before.
But I'm not the only one. Many of us teens think it, of course many adults may argue that they do too. But not in as wide a spectrum as us.

Then again, I am one individual teen, those are just my thoughts, explained quite blandly, but if I were to write down all the things I think of constantly, I would run out of room, and be thought to be weird. Because my thoughts are weird. No one has normal thoughts though. Not when you're a teen.

So when adults say that detested phrase, that they know what we're like? They're lying. They did once. But as they grew up so did their minds. So did their souls. We're not all randy, hormonal, drunken messes. In a way though, we are all the same. We as teens all have aspirations bigger than any other age group. We have no limitations and we have no cares. Peter Pan can eat his heart out.

So to conclude, I say we prove the adults wrong. We stop being moody as much as we can and we dream big, but we let people know about our dreams. Many teenagers (including myself) are afraid to let our true feelings show because we're afraid to get shot down by our peers. It's the way it always has been. Again, it's another way we feel we need to conform to fit in; hide our true thoughts and just blend in, for God's sake, if we want anything, it's to blend in.
So let's blend into a new way of thinking. Every minute spent quiet or upset or regretting not expressing ourselves, is a minute of our lives wasted. So let's get out there and be ridiculed for thinking big.

As a friend of mine once said? "These are the good times in your life, so put on a smile and it'll be alright." =)