I had been disappointed when my oldest granddaughter had decided not to get any further education after graduating from high school. With her high grades I thought she could be a success in whatever she took.
I was very happy to hear that after a year out in the real world she decided that she did need training in a profession. She chose massage therapy and enrolled in a private college to get her certificate.
She phoned me last week all excited about her courses, going into great detail about what she had learned so far.
She made my head spin with all the proper medical names for our muscles then she said something that made me wonder about youth and people in general.
She told me that this was the first time in her whole life (all 20 years of it) that she had been in a group where everyone had the same interests and nobody was judging anyone or acting better than the others.
She said it really felt good and she was able to relax and just be herself.
I told her that was exactly why adults were always telling teens to do the things they were interested in, to just be themselves and not try and fit in with a group just because you thought they were the popular ones.
Teens don’t seem to understand that all people are not the same, that some people are good at ‘these’ things and not ‘those’ things. They can’t seem to see that they will not be happy trying to do things they are not good at. They can’t see that they would be much happier and find better friends when they are just themselves and find others who share their interests.
When everyone likes apples no one can look down on you when you say you like apples.
Most of the people in my granddaughter’s class are about the same age and this really made me curious.
It is almost like there is a switch that someone flipped and they all saw the light.
What I would like to know is why can’t they see the light earlier? It has only been a year or so since these young people were in high school trying to fit in and being bullied because they didn’t.
I wish teens could see that the people who like oranges better than apples are just as good as the apple lovers. I wish they could see that the world needs them all.
Think about it, what would happen to all the orange growers if everyone liked apples?
I wish we would all learn to appreciate and respect our uniqueness.
