Save Your Youth For Later : High School Junior Edition

As (high school) midterms loom closer and closer, more and more of my peers are starting to lose it. Not in the literal, mental-breakdown kind of way, but in the "I have so much anxiety I might just explode" kind of way. As juniors, we have to make sure everything we do is impressive, if we ever hope to get into our dream colleges.It's a tough act to handle, because on top of juggling actual school work (which, admittedly, gets pretty overwhelming sometimes,) we also have to maintain leadership positions, actively volunteer within our community, and participate in at least one sport or club, if not more, (and in most cases, mine included, it's definitely more). Midterms are stressful because they factor in to your semester grades, and if you bomb them, you're in trouble. At such a young age we are expected to make sure our futures are solidified by excelling at everything, and as worth it as it is to get into college and finally begin the journey to the career of our choice, it's actually kind of sad to think of all the experiences we're missing out on while we're focusing so hard on making our resumes competitive. How many of us actually enjoy ALL of the extracurricular activities we participate in? Nearly everyone I know is a member of at least one club or is doing a particular sport solely based on how good it will look on college applications. That's more time given that we don't necessarily have, committed to something we aren't even passionate about.  The closer and closer I get to college, the more I almost resent it, because the idea of college has dictated my entire life ever since I was about 11 years old. That's 6 whole years and counting of my childhood, spent stressing out about college. There has to be a rule against that, somewhere, hopefully.  My parents observe the mental state of me and my peers and the exhaustion and anxiety we put ourselves through, and wonder what changed between their generation and ours, because they were never like this. I can only imagine what my children will be forced to endure in order to succeed. It's a scary thought, that's for sure.

**I am the original author of this post, but it will also be posted on Huffington Post Teen.