Who Are We?

The world is so set on telling its younger generation to both "be themselves" and follow the latest trend. Being a teen is enough of a challenge without the pressure of feeling lost in ourselves. When we try to define ourselves, are we really just traits and trends we picked up from other people? Is that really your style or are you wearing it because a Kardashian wore it? Do you truly like that basketball team or were you just following LeBron around because he was the most popular baller?

With social media today, it can be so easy to lose ourselves in all the personalities we encounter online and take pieces of. However, I think when we try to know who we are, we get it all wrong. We go for trying to find our "label". Labels that put us in little boxes and niches that we are to be confined to. As Brian so wonderfully wrote in The Breakfast Club, "You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But heat we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.". Although we may not be literally all of those things, the thought is still there.

I will not try to pretend to know everything about a subject as complex as this one, as complex as we are, but we are not a box. We are not a two-syllable word surrounded by stereotypes to make our presence easy to decipher in this word. Being a teen and trying to find yourself seems so important and it is but we get it so screwed up the first time someone tells us who we are. But even as we come to an age of finding out who we are, we can no longer look to others to sort us to the stereotypical boxes of goth, jock, nerd, etc. Sometimes we won't know who we are and that's ok.

When it comes time that you want to figure it out, do not look for a word. Differentiate between the music you listen to because you love it and the music you listen to because your friends love it. Know what clothes you wear because you enjoy the style and the clothes you buy because everyone is wearing it too. The difference between who you are for the world and what you truly enjoy is the real you that everyone looks for. There is no box to contain you, no word to define you, no test to tell you who you are. The things you love to do, your laughter, your best school subject, your personality, and so much more make you. We become so confused on finding our box or our word when something so simple could never hold us. In a world built off of social media and pop culture, it can be hard to know who you are. Hopefully, this can make it a little easier.