Sex, drugs and alcohol. That might have been the expected answer from a kid my age. While I cannot deny that they affect every teenager in America, they simply don’t mean much to me at all. What truly matters to me is a mixture of basic human needs and my own personal need for different kinds of relationships. I am fortunate enough to have much of these needs already.
Everyone needs their parents. A good parent should help give their kid a sense of right and wrong. They shouldn’t let their kid do whatever they want, but also be able to take a step back once in a while and allow them to make decisions for themselves. I am SO lucky that my parents have been able to do that for me.
Frankly, I don’t see how it’s possible for someone to get through life without at least one BEST friend. They need to be someone that you can relate to on many different levels; someone that you can joke around with, but also go into those deep conversations. A best friend is a person that you can relax around. Sometimes it’s stressful to try to seem interesting for a new person. This does not apply to best friends. I couldn’t be happier to have this relationship as well. My dad once told me that if you have as least one good friend then you’re doing well in life.
It is natural to want to be intimate with someone special. This is a good example of something that you don’t realize how important it is until it has been taken away from you. As I grow older, I long for this more and more. I need that special someone to be “better” than me. They need to be superior to me in areas like religion, succumbing to peer pressure and just an overall nicer person. As a teenager, this is particularly hard because I know that I must wait a while before it will be possible to have a relationship like that. Generally, we lack the maturity to maintain a relationship of that importance. If not that, we will continue to grow up and change our interests, perhaps making a once terrific relationship turn into something less meaningful. I personally, cannot wait for the day that I can enjoy having someone like this in my life.
A mentor is also a necessity in the growth a person. Mentors come in all shapes and sizes. All a mentor is simply someone we look up to and try to mirror. It could be a parent, a teacher or even a friend. People might say that they went their whole lives without a mentor. That might be possible, but as humans, we naturally assign ourselves someone to look up to. How else would we learn to speak a language? How would we learn our social skills and how to function in a society? A mentor is an essential piece in the puzzle of life, whether we like it or not.
Humans are social beings. It’s as simple as that. We all have an urge to interact with people in some way. Online gaming, sports, and politics all are bases around social interactions. In prison, the worst punishment you can get is solitary confinement. Think about why that would be the worst punishment and you will understand the importance of other people in our lives. Don’t take your relationships for granted. The bonds we form now will determine who we are later. We only get one life; let’s make it a good one.