Prompt Topic 2

Young people frequently fall into the trap of assuming that the difficulties they face today are greater and more troublesome than those faced by previous generations.  As they gain experience and maturity, however, they eventually become aware of the falsity of this assumption. 

When God asked Solomon teenage king of Israel what gift he would like, Solomon replied that he wanted wisdom that he should govern Israel justly and do the divine will.

The above statement is insightful in its grasp of teen development and its understanding of youth. I wholeheartedly agree with the assertion that young people fall into the afore-mentioned trap naturally because of their inexperience, but also because of teenage rashness and impulsiveness.

Usually, youth is spent learning and studying through difficult regimes.  Adults are perceived in most cases, to be the ones in control of the teenagers’ lives, and consequently not the ones experiencing the difficulty, but the taskmasters.  What then changes in later life, when the youth realizes that the previous generation most likely had just as difficult a time if not worse.  On the other hand teenagers may feel that their lot is more difficult because the emotional impact of events in their life seem to come at them from all sides without rest. 

During this early adolescence experiences may be perceived as overwhelming especially to a mind that has not had to deal with a multitude of facets before.  Teenagers will view their world coming at them all at once and their attempt at coping may be viewed as rash behavior while it is quite normal for the teen themselves.  The forces tearing at the teenagers’ brain may become frightening and also isolate them in their emotions.  Adolescence is a time of subjectivity where the concept of ‘me’ is paramount and although objectivity is in their lexicon it is rarely aspired to.  This subjectivity is in turn perceived as selfish and impulsive, leading one to overestimate one’s prowess.

Adolescents often perceive themselves as being superhuman.  A case in point, the majority of road accident statistics involve adolescents and these incidents almost always are caused by excess speed.  Why do youngsters continue to speed, when they know or have seen the effects of traffic accidents.  The answer here must be the perceived invulnerability of the teenager, this thinking that it can never happen to me.  Unfortunately this perception is often rudely shattered by a cataclysmic event that affects for a lifetime.

.There are any number of heartaches in store for the teenager and just the mere thought that ones mother or father actually has had the same experience is unthinkable.  There is a drive to uniqueness in the young, and it is only in later years that we come to realize that we are all human and share the same experience.  However, it is in this superhuman-ness that we can perhaps dare to dream and prepare ourselves for future greatness.  Once we have come to this realization the cycle once again starts when we pass on our wisdom and knowledge to the next generation of youth.