Date Posted: November 11th, 2009
Your teenage years are a very weird time. You’re physically able to take care of yourself, but society all but mandates that you live with your parents. High school is mandatory. You don’t have the credentials to get a well paying job. You have no credit. You’re stuck. Functionally you’re mostly an adult, but you’re living under your parents’ rules. If you’re blessed with understanding parents your time in high school might not be that bad, but there’s no way to guarantee that. And even well meaning parents can have a hard time understanding that you’re almost an adult.
So what do you do if you have parents who are making your life miserable? Here are a few suggestions:
Act Like You’re Self Sufficient
Start doing the things you would be doing if you were living on your own. Do your own laundry. Fix your own breakfast. Wash the dishes. Clean the bathroom. Do these things independent of whether or not your parents ask you to. If you have a co-dependent relationship with your parents (i.e. you make your decisions based on how your parents will react), this is an excellent practice tool for working toward acting independently of them.
In addition you’ll get several other benefits from doing this:
- A feeling of power Honestly, as much doing household chores is a pain, doing them freely really does make you feel like you’re an adult. You are using your ability to take care of yourself. When someone tells you you’re incapable of taking care of yourself, you’ll know that in fundamental way you indeed are capable.
- You improve your quality of life a bit. A cleaner room is a nicer room. The food you cook is of as high a quality as you can make it.
- Your parental units may start seeing you as more of an adult. And not just any kind of adult: a responsible adult. The more responsible you are in their eyes the more privileges you get. (Usually) All parents are different, so I can’t guarantee this will be the outcome for you, but I can say that there’s virtually no chance that taking care of the house will hurt your credibility.
Even if you’re planning to leave your room a mess, never do your own laundry, and leave the dishes in the sink for weeks when you actually do get to live on your own, I’d highly advise you to consider becoming the kind of person who’s tidy all the time. Ask yourself if part of the reason you’re a slob is just to piss off your parents. If that’s the case, you’re being co-dependent. You’re better than that.
Follow Your Conscience
Adults are perfectly capable of giving you advice and then going about acting irresponsibly. Sometimes ideas you know are right will be shot down by people who are older than you. They’ll tell you you haven’t lived, that there’s no way for you to understand until you’re older. If you’re getting this response, it’s unreasonable.
I’m 24 now. I’ve had a fair amount of life experience compared to my high school self. There’s only a handful of things I don’t think I’d have understood prior to experiencing them, and those weren’t the things I got into arguments about.
I spent a fair amount of time in high school angsting about my lack of experience. Looking back, it was wasted time and energy. I’d have done a lot better to trust myself and fall once in a while than feel bad that I could convince the authority figures (and myself) that I was right. Alas.
Get your advice from people with real experience
Related to the last point, many adults will have no problem giving you advice which they’d never consider giving their peers. They’ll tell you about investing when they’re buried in debt. They’ll tell you about how to deal with your significant other when they’ve been divorced three times and had two affairs. It’s unwise to take advice from someone when the subject of the advice is an area in which the person continues to fail. Don’t call them on this though. More likely than not they’ll attack you for it.
Instead get your advice from people who have reached the goals you want to reach. Ask someone who appears to have a good relationship about how to deal with your significant other. Ask someone who owns a business about what it’s like to start one. Etc.
Don’t complain
This will get you a lot of the way toward a good experience in high school. Whining doesn’t win you anything, and even when it does it comes at a price. You aren’t respected. You’re seen for the dependent child that you are.
Instead, acknowledge your situation, and try to find ways to work within it. If there’s injustice, accept it. It’s really hard to convince parents that they’re favoring one of your siblings, no matter how obvious it is to an outside observer. Same thing with a parenting decision. It’s not worth fighting since you do not have real power. The faster you accept it, the less hurt gets into your heart. Take heart that the situation is temporary.
Acting independently will help you in this endeavor.
Be Judicious in Your Openness
This is entirely dependent on who your parents are. There are some that will actually help you be your own person, who will reward openness with helping you think through the problem. If you have one of those, feel free to be fairly open with them. Let them know what you’re doing, what your beliefs are, what you aspire to do. They’ll help you get there.
If your parents are still believe they can “mold” you into their version of the ideal you, your openness will not be greeted with happy things. The best advice here is to give them only what they can handle hearing. If every time you talk about your dreams of traveling you’re dreams are shot down, don’t talk about it. They haven’t earned the right to your openness. Find other people to share it with. Lots of people, less attached than your parents, will be able to support what you want to do.
In short, they aren’t entitled to your openness just because they’re your parents.
Like the post on getting through high school, if I’d done these things while I was a teenager my life would have been a lot more pleasant. Such is life. Don’t repeat my mistakes.
Tags:
Character-Development, Emotional Health, High School, Intuition, Psychology.
Posted at
11:56 am | No Comments »
Date Posted: November 10th, 2009
One thing I learned from college is that my “college-prep” high school did not prepare me for college. At least not fundamentally. Sure I’d taken 7 AP classes, all honors wherever I could. I took 3 full years of history, 4 of math (including calculus), 4 of English, even an art class or two. I’d been exposed to lots of stuff, but throughout that time I’d never been seriously asked to think about what I wanted to do with a college degree. I was told there was no point to making a decision about what to major in since I’d probably change my mind when I got there. Apparently that also meant there was no point really thinking about it and experimenting with it either.
The problem with this thinking is that college is expensive. If you start your first day of college with the plan of figuring out what you want to do when you get there, you’ll be wasting a lot of precious time and money. High school, on the other hand, is mandatory and free (at least for you). Also most of the stuff you’re supposed to imbibe there is not that important in the long run. Unless you’re going into biology or another related field you don’t really need to remember what mitochondria is or how mitosis works. Which University you get into, how many clubs you were a part of, and how much community service you do doesn’t really matter either unless you aspire to work for a giant corporation. Giant corporations like people who follow the rules.
What is important is that you have an idea of what direction you’d like to go in. College is way more useful if you know why you’re getting your degree. Even if you think you know what you want to do (I sure thought I knew!) I’d suggest doing the following things. They’ll either reinforce your decision or they’ll show you how weak your idea is.
Spend time dreaming about your future
How do you want to make a difference? When you’re changing classes, daydream about your future. Figure out how to make it happen. What steps need to be taken in order to make this dream come to life. Try it on for a while. Pay attention to how it makes you feel. If you feel excited, take note of it. If you feel anxious take note of it.
If you could retire now, what would you do with your time? Seriously. Would you spend it watching TV day in day out? Would you travel everywhere? Would you raise a big family? Would you spend a lot of time on your hobby? Would you write? Would you try to make a difference? What sounds appealing?
Find someone to listen to you
Tell someone about your dreams. Specifically say you’re not sure what you’re going to do or if you’ll take action on any one thing you pick. You just want to make sure you understand what’s involved in pursuing that dream. What are the pros and cons. What you would need to do in order to take action on one of those dreams right now. What you can do right now to get an idea of what it’d be like. You’re looking for someone to tell you when your actions aren’t in line with what you profess you want to do.
Most people I know assume that any dream you confide in them is something you’re going to take action on. When you inevitably change your mind they may get impatient with you, and not believe what you say. That’s why you need to let them know that you’re just dreaming right now. Serious dreaming, but not actual physical commitment dreaming.
Ideally your parents will be the people you can tell this to, but they don’t have to be. If you try telling your parents about it and they freak out, giving you reactionary advice, just let it go and find someone else. You shouldn’t let their issues hold you back.
Some other places you can look for advice include: your peers, your teachers, or your coaches. Keep your eye out for people you can look up to or people who’ve done the kinds of things you’d like to do. Get to know them. If a teacher you admire moderates a club at your school, consider joining. Ask them lots of questions. You’re at a special age because people will be willing to help you without expecting anything in return.
Don’t spend time with people who will shoot you down. It’s not helpful. It keeps you from growing.
Get as much experience as you can
If you want to be a doctor, spend some time after school volunteering at the hospital. If you want to be a programmer, work with some friends on a compelling programming project or help out with an open source project. If you want to own a small business, try to get a job at one that’s similar to what you want to do. The more experience you get, the more you’ll get to know what you really want to do.
If you feel uncomfortable about getting experience in an area you think you’d like to work in, you have a problem.
Visualize what it’d be like to do what you want to do
Almost as important as real experience is visualization. Figure out how your life would work if you were doing what it is you want to do. What would an average day look like? How much freedom would you have? How much travel would you have to do? Is this something you really want?
A few years ago I got it in my head that I wanted to open up an early music shop. For a variety of reasons I won’t get into here, it wasn’t a terrible idea. I read a few books on opening up a retail shop, knew I had the capability of doing it, and got really excited about it.
After a week or two, though, I started to think twice. My life would be tied to the shop. Eventually I could negotiate a couple extra days off a week, but that’s not a lot of freedom. Also my influence would be limited to people in the Midwest region and maybe a few early music people in the country. Was that really what I wanted for myself? Would I really be making the kind of impact I want to make? Would I have the freedom to homeschool my future kids? No, not really.
I didn’t have to even work at a music shop to see that that path wouldn’t work. Did I waste much time and money thinking about it? No. A few weeks is barely anything. I got the books from the library. Which brings me to the next piece of advice.
Read a Lot
When you get an idea, go to the library and check out some books on your topic of choice. Chances are someone’s already done what you want to do. Read blogs about people in your field. Read Read Read Read Read. You’ll learn a lot about the kind of things you could do with your life. The kind of things they don’t teach you in school.
Again, if your family isn’t supportive you don’t have to tell them about what you’re reading. Read your books and secret, and let them know about things only when you have to. You aren’t doing anything wrong, and the conflict you cause the better.
If I’d have done these things I’d be a different person now. College would have been more valuable to me. I’d be further along with what I want to do with my life. If I could do it over in this way I would.
Tags:
Career, College, High School, Purpose.
Posted at
3:02 pm | No Comments »
