TEENAGERS, challenges

So, here I am. A teenager with my one foot stepping into the realm of adulthood and the other foot reluctantly following.

- Eric Egong @ ericegong.blogspot.com -

I attached the source of the beautiful quote above, otherwise my brother might kill me (for plagiarising his idea). Anyway, today, I would like to share a little bit about challenges that come our (teenagers') way. 

When I was young, I sometimes witnessed my elder brother having occasional emotional tantrums. Now that I am a teenager myself (now approaching the finish line, I am going to be an adult, soon), I behaved exactly the same way as he did. If you ask me, I don't know why. In fact, ask any teenager, and you can expect a long eerie silence after that. We teenagers are just emotionally unstable (very, very). 

It seems like teenage life marks the start of a bloody battle against a string of unending challenges. Homework, school activities, chores... these are just small players on the battlefield. The big players, or fighters, are usually those that float to us without a physical body. For instance, failure. People have the saying 'failure is the mother of success' dangling from the edge of their lips (sometimes stuck in between their teeth), but do you think it is easy for us? Do you think that we, who are emotionally rocky, can say, "Hey, I failed. I am so glad, it means I will succeed soon. Failure is the mother of success. Blah blah blah..."

Failure is like a big slap on our cheek, and when combined with a sudden unpredictable low mood, they can spell death (that's why sometimes we come across news of students committing suicide after scoring low marks in exams etc.). How to fight this warrior? I really don't know. 

Next, seeking one's own identity is also a big challenge faced by any teenager. Of course I know my name, but as a teenager, I sometimes question my own existence, I sometimes deem my life as an unworthy pawn in a destined chess game. When I come to my senses, I get terrified. I just do. And I feel even worse if I happened to cause troubles. It's not like I want to create troubles, I am not even aware of creating one, until I get an earful from adults.

Yes, challenges are planted all along the path we take... but it seems the first few that we face during teen age are the hardest of them all...