Under-aged and Over-privileged

We’ve all seen it thousands of times: 18 year olds that drive by in their oddly luxurious cars, adolescents with their designer purses and clothes, elementary school-aged kids with all of the newest, hottest technology. Although, these things get attention and seemly make people happy, more than ever we are seeing the reprecutions of our extreme capitalist society as they begin to affect people in mostly negative ways. So it makes me think, what kind is the image of money that we are portraying to people nowadays, and how is it affecting adolescents.

I have to be honest, the first day of college I was astounded and quick frankly a little alarmed at the amount of young college students driving around in $80,000 vehicles. And I wasn’t gawking at them because I was jealous. In fact, I’m perfectly happy with my car that has wracked up far more years than I have on this planet. What truly disturbed me was the fact that there were willing to gift such young beings such valuable objects. I began to wonder how this phenomenon has begun to affect the youth of today. It’s really not that hard of a question to answer. Just look around you. More and more, adolescents are being given things that are slowing taking away the true definition of success. How can we learn what success really is if we have never had to make the effort to experience the fruits of success, they are just handed to us unearned and furthermore, how can we learn to appreciate the small aspects of life is everything is handed to us on a silver platter?

The phenomenon I am truly getting at has everything to do with being over-privileged and under-aged. People are loosing the ability to be grateful. Just as I said, I see it everyday and I am sure you all do as well. I even find myself complaining about trivial things from time to time, but as of recently I have been catching myself in these moments. However, I have to admit that I was once a semi-entitled kiddo as well. I grew up always wanting the newest ipod, I was about 8 when they first came out and I absolutely had to be the first to have one. I then was always on the quest to convince my parents to buy me a phone (because “all” of the other kids at school had one). As I got into middle school I became obsessed with clothes and already knew how to slip my mother’s credit card from her purse and purchase things online. Even into high school my entitled tendencies continued with makeup and hair products that I just really couldn’t “live” without, but then something changed. I got a job and learned that making money involved long hours of hard work. I then began to realize the amount of work my parents put in to buy me the things that I spent my life longing for.  And so it really hit me: I had to work hard to make money to be successful, success couldn’t be handed to you in the form of material objects. And with that, I became thankful for the things that I was given and thankful for everything in life.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression about the definition of the word success. I have learned the true definition of success in the past few years, but luckily the word “success” has a vague definition. The reason for that is YOU get to determine what success means to you. I believe that the first step to getting over this over-privileged mindset is to be thankful for all of the things you have been granted in life and realize that not everyone is as fortunate as we are and the second step is to stop assuming things don’t have to be earned. True personal success lies under all of these complicated layers of entitlement that we have built up. We just have to break these barriers down and find it for ourselves. So I challenge you all, what is your definition of success, and if you don’t have one, go find it.

Money is the anthem of success - not happiness

There's no doubt that money runs this world and I would be foolish not to acknowledge that fact. Money has wound its way into every part of our lives and has even become to define what we believe as true "success". And true success is bounded to the concept of true "happiness" as well, which is where this image of money takes a dangerous turn and becomes a harmful obsession of gaining wealth instead of discovering contentment within ourselves.

The problem is that the adolescence of today is being socialized to believe that the road to happiness is paved with dollar bills. Our capitalist society is flawed in that way. Today kids are taught to judge others not by who they are, but by how many things they own. Although, the things being introduced to society are revolutionary, we need to look at them and question the impact that they have on us as human beings.

I cannot pretend as if all of these same thoughts and opinions about the link between wealth and happiness haven't once been in my mind as well. I've lived a large portion of my life with the belief that if I didn't study hard enough, if I wasn't the best in my class, if I wasn't every teacher's favorite student, and if I didn't strive to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or any other highly payed individual then I would never be truly happy in my lifetime. And I spent every dime that I ever made working, as a waitress, on pointless things that made me happy for the moment, but in the long run only made me yearn for more objects to sustain my state of fabricated contentment.

I spent the past year as an exchange student in Lloret de Mar, Spain, a small town about an hour North of Barcelona and among the many things I learned during my eye-opening adventure, I learned that this happiness that I was always looking for in things apart from myself was truly inside of me my entire life. For the first time in my life I was forced to live with without the people that I had come to love and depend on and the personal belongings that I thought defined me. I learned probably the most valuable lesson in my life and that was that I was in control of my happiness and I was the only thing that was standing between that happiness that I so longed for. I saw that all of the objects in my life, though important in some ways did not hold as much weight as I had always believed. And so I want to reach out to all of you and share this valuable lesson. Do what you really love in life and make yourself happy because although money and objects may seem as though they bring these things, the effect is only momentary. So be yourself and join me on the path to true happiness.

Representing ourselves through the clothes we wear on our backs

So, lately I have spent a lot of time pondering, or maybe a better phrase would be fuming over the ways people choose to dress themselves. Frankly, I am completely for free expression and unique ways of dressing so I don’t want to allude to this being a negative thing. However, I do want to let you all in on the reason that this particular idea came to mind and the reason that I just can’t let it go.

About a week ago, I went out one night with a group of friends to a party at a frat house, like any typical college student. As we approached the neighborhood of frat houses, I became more and more flabbergasted by the swarms of scantily clothed women in dangerously high heels who for the majority, were all outrageously drunk. And for the next few days I actually felt this sort of anger mixed with embarrassment for these ladies and after spending a lot of time fuming over this all, I have finally come to a conclusion on the subject.

Self-expression is beautiful, but it is exactly that: SELF-expression. The reason that I found myself so angry and embarrassed over a bunch of half-naked girls was because they were doing the opposite of expressing themselves. They were scantily clothed to please others not themselves. That night I was almost embarrassed to share the same gender with this group of girls. I felt the disrespect that they had for themselves, it was obvious, almost hovering over their heads for everyone to see. I have realized that this is sort of an epidemic. They were dishonoring themselves as human beings, sending out the signal that they were sex symbols, not intellectual beings.

I can’t act as if I have never participated in this epidemic. I have spent the entirety of my life, until about the last year, dressing myself in order to please others, in order to fit, and in order to feel valued as a human being. I spent thousands of dollars buying garments that would show my economic status. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and wore clothes that showed too much skin in hopes of attracting attention from my male peers. I fawned over clothes that I thought would change people's perspective of me. But then in the past year I have realized that in acting this way I was truly doing myself a dishonor. What I have finally learned is that I was letting other people shape who I was and I didn't recognize that person in the least.

So all I have to say is this: we are who we are and we are all different. We should never let others define the value that we have especially not by the clothes we wear on our backs. Be proud of who you are and do things because YOU want to do them. We may not be able to change each other's views, but that isn't important. You are the change you want to see in the world. It all starts at an individual level and you need to make the choice to love and be who YOU are.

Cheers to new beginnings

So here's to starting something new! I have spent much time pondering what I wanted to include in my blog and in the end I decided that I wanted to create sort of an all encompassing realm of eclectic blog posts that all have the common goal of explaining my journey to discovering who I am and accepting who I am. I am hoping through these blog posts that I can continue to learn about myself, but also help others to find themselves as well. I will be posting on random occurrences in my everyday life, the trials and tribulations, and relating them to this journey of mine. I just can't wait to get started!