Linked Hearts: Teenage Life - Issue 1

Suffocating in Standards

"Honey, I've got heels higher than your standards."

I was absolutely hurt by what I had heard a while ago.

My grandfather was watching TV, and as usual, he fell alseep on the couch with the television on. I was in no mood to sneak the remote from his limp hand, so I plopped down a chair and watched whatever was on.

A man in a simple suit stood before a crowd of hundreds in a large, bright room. He was speaking to them, and the audience was trapped in his words, absolutely transfixed. I had never in my life seen such an attentive group of listeners, especially not during class. (Yes, school burn out of nowhere. High-five.)

I squinted at the little white words at the bottom of the screen. It said: Parent's Seminar: Understanding Teenagers.

I was intrigued. Could it be possible that our generation would be finally understood?

Leaning forward, I listened to what he was saying, ". . . they do not know how to open their ears and open their hearts. Whenever I walk into the mall, I see teens with headphones clamped down on their ears. They. . ." I listened on, and he was basically complaining about our habits and hobbies.

Excuse me but I was expecting an inspirational, life-changing speech on how to connect with teenagers and not some old-people "we rock so much" rants and confessions.

We, teenagers, have always opened our hearts and ears to what adults have to say. And most of the time, what they say are complaints and their disapproval. We leave our hearts open, and they become scarred. Music allows us to breathe and escape from all the pressure.

The reason here are the adults' standards. Some expect us to be incredibly talented without realizing that we wanted to be our own person.

It isn't entirely their fault. They believe that they are molding us into a fine figure of excellence. But their definition of success is different from ours.

My mother wants me to play the guitar. It was her dream when she was little, and now she's passing on her dream to me. I didn't want her dreams because I had my own. I tried it out and it didn't connect to me. Now, she's pretty disappointed and keeps on forcing me to play. No matter how much I politely told her I wasn't interested, she persevered.

They are handing us our goals, but we have our own.

Before, I felt like I was suffocating in my mother's commands. I forced myself to play and practice until my fingers bled and my eyes would prick with tears. And when I couldn't manage to play one song smoothly, I would feel like a failure. I even spent an entire summer in guitar lessons without enjoying anything, and amounting to nothing but a miserable mess. It's safe to say that that was the worst summer of my life.

So, how are we going to escape these prison called expectation and pressure?

We set our own standards. And excel at it.

I'm fairly fine in the art of writing. Not good, but not bad either. I'm enjoying it, and now I feel like I'm not suffocating anymore. My mom still wants me to play that cursed abomination of an instrument, but whenever I make a poem or a story, she would smile at me with such pride in her eyes.

And boy, did that feel good! I felt much more free than Elsa felt when she sang Let It Go and pranced around making those snow effects for no logical reason except for the sheer glory of it.

My dad is very supportive of me not playing the guitar. When he was a teenager, he had trouble molding himself and searching for what he wanted to do. He tried out many activities, and only one called out to him: art. He knows and remembers what it's like searching for a talent that seemed like it wasn't there.

In short, he was a child who survived.

I'm not saying that we should reject every suggestion our parents give us. I say we try them all, but we discontinue what we don't enjoy. It's all about molding who we are, which we will discuss more in the next chapter.

Some people will always set us in their standards, but we don't have to suffocate in them anymore. We can't please everybody, so watch me strut away from their oh-so-important standards with my high heels and my hips swaying from side to side. Suck on it, honey.