Do It As A Teen: Part 1

One night about six months ago a group of us guys went into Auckland city for a friend of mine's Stag Do before his wedding. Yeah, Auckland city late on a Friday night, not a good idea. When we arrived on the main street the first thing I noticed was the amount of young people that were going from bar to bar getting very drunk. Yet, the drinking was not the thing that upset me. I mean yes, getting drunk is bad, but what really struck me as horrible was the amount of wasted potential. Every young person there had great potential, but they were wasting their lives away with drink.

Why do we as teenagers do this? Why do we see our teen years as a time to goof off from responsibility? Well, the reason why is because that is what is expected of us. The world has very low expectations of teens. I mean seriously think about it. We as teenagers are not given very many responsibilities. The few that we do have are these:

• Tidy your own room.
• Wake up in the morning in time to go to school (often Mum will help you with this).
• Go to school.
• And maybe one small job around the house like taking out the rubbish or loading the dishwasher

Okay, maybe your life consists of a bit more, but all I am trying to do is make a point. Because the world has low expectation of us we never fulfill our true God given potential. Once while at church an elderly man asked me what was it I do. I told him I run an online toy store and a toy wholesale company. He looked at me surprised and then said, "How old are you?" I told him I was eighteen. To which he replied, "Wow, you are doing very, very well for your age!" at first I thought, Yeah, I am doing well for my age." Just as I was starting to treat myself to a self-praise party a second thought popped into my head, "No, the only reason he thinks I am doing well for my age is because he probably like the rest of the world has low expectations of teenagers!"

The world has low expectations of us and we are falling to those standards. The world says the teen years are a holiday from responsibility and a time to goof off and have fun. So, that is exactly what we do.

Is there more to the years of a teenager? Yes, and I will cover it in my next post.

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