Just be you.

If there’s one thing that I have come to realise whilst maturing and growing up, it’s that you should never try to be anyone else. I understand how difficult this can be, especially so during adolescence where in a sense you are trying to find who you are. I’m 19 years old at present, and I don’t really know who I am. I do, however, know who I am not. Furthermore, I have acquired my own set of morals and beliefs, of which I like to think make me a good person.

Teenage “angst” is always a difficult thing to perceive and many people do not realise that they were in a state of “angst” until very much on the other side of it and looking back and wondering, “what the fuck was all that about” – that was my case anyway.

From the aesthetics of the way you look, the way you dress and the friends you choose to be around. To the more serious things such as the morals you chose to abide by, or the rules you choose to test. It’s hard to find others like you, when you don’t know who “you” are.

A sociologist, David Matza, suggested that in adolescence we are in a kind of ‘no-mans-land’ in which we have the ability and the freedom to do many things, and the lack of responsibility to prevent us from doing them. As such we are in a state of “drift”. He uses the phrase in terms of petty crimes that this age group commits. However, I believe that this phrase can be more loosely applied to people in this point of their lives. Instead of committing crimes, many teenagers drift in and out of their friendship group, their common values and their attitudes. It is a state of no-mans-land and it’s tough. There are many things to contend with alongside the struggle with acknowledging who you are, such as peer-pressure and bullying.

Throughout everything though, and no matter how many times you change your opinions, just embrace your own individual personality traits. You only get to be a teenager once, and everyone is in the same situation as you. Just go with the flow and see where it takes you. This is the time in your life where you are allowed to make some mistakes – as Matza said, you have very few responsibilities.