August 30, 2020 5:32 PM

Be the perfect person, it’s simple really: get good grades, be the star athlete, be a leader, be kind to everyone. Even if they don’t return the favor, please everyone and be happy. Simple, right? Forced down our throats every day with a simple smile and a “I’ll try my best”. Searching for the moment when they say that they are proud of us and that it’s okay if our best wasn’t perfect that we will never end up hearing. Pressure is always upon us and is always weighing us down, especially for those people who try to please everyone. It’s hard when everyone expects you to be such a happy person all the time. But once you aren’t and something is off, you get looked at completely different. 

The pressure is not only put upon us through words but through actions and expressions. It hurts the most when you think you did something right and they sigh or give you a half smile trying to say “Good try kiddo”, but it only comes off as “You could have done better”. Then again I think that’s what makes us such hard workers and smart kids. By them pushing us and us constantly looking for approval. The slightest indicators that we did something wrong and we start over. But that’s how we were raised right, do it right and or don’t do.. just do it right. 

We’re trying.

September 3, 2020 2:54 AM

I think it’s crazy how when we were little all we wanted to do was be older and be able to do the things that the “big girls/boys” could do. I mean I know for a fact that growing up with two older sisters I often felt neglected or left out because I was too little or too immature and I remember always wishing I was their age. Yet, now that I’m older all I want to do is be a little kid again. It was so easy and the most stressful part of our day was trying to figure out what was for dinner. Now we have to actually learn to do adult things and so much more is expected of us. 

I often wonder if some people are truly happy or if they’re just better at hiding it than others. I know of a person who is looked at is such a happy soul and just absolutely lights up every room she walks into and deep down she is hurting the worst. She carries on through the day happy as can be and she believes her main purpose is to make others happy and to shine light where it seems like the dark is devouring a mindset. To be a person like that is to be someone who has strength like no other and to have the best acting skills in America. It hurts to know that she’s not okay because she is truly one of god's greatest gifts. The only people who see her hurt are the ones who ask her past 12:00am when she can’t take the thought of being alone.

September 6, 2020 7:56 PM

Love to live not live to love. I think that’s what some people have the wrong idea on. Now don’t get me wrong I completely understand the fact of the matter that some people’s dying wish is just to fall in love and to be completely in love with someone and I think there is nothing wrong with that. I think that it’s normal for people to want to be loved because let’s be honest who doesn’t, but I guess I just don’t perceive life that way. I believe more in the fact that to be free and to have just the feeling of living is enough and you should be in love with the thought of living more than the thought of loving someone else. 

I for one am not a super strong believer in love and honestly it’s probably just because I’ve never truly experienced it but the idea just completely amazes me. I think that it’s crazy to think that you can actually always want to be with someone. For you to always want to be someone is a crazy idea to me because let’s all be honest with ourselves we don’t know that feeling until we do. I guess it’s hard to explain the way I think about it, like I just can't comprehend the idea that you can have that must trust in someone and actually believe that they’re never going to break your heart. That’s also probably the reason that I've never felt love, because I always put a front or a wall to protect my feelings.  That’s what I do with everything though, because it’s easy to act tough and push through something when you either already expected it to happen or you never even let someone or something in, in the first place.

September 16, 2020 1:24 AM

I heard a quote the other day and I have been blown away ever since, Shawn Mendes in his new movie Wonder said “..I think it’s like when you see a moon or stars and you try and take a photo of it with your iPhone, and then you just can't, it just doesn't look good. And you’re like, ‘It’s not supposed to be captured.’ You know? It’s just supposed to be for us” . He was talking about his love for Camila and that all his love could never be expressed because it’s so special that only they understand. When I heard this it made me so excited to find someone like that and I realised that to have something pure and true is to just simply live and love like there’s nothing like tomorrow. 

September 23, 2020 9:07 PM

I wish I lived in a time before phones or a time where love was pure, the 80s to be more specific. The music, the style, the way of love, everything just seemed more pure. To live in a time where when your friend spilled a drink all over you because she tripped and it went flying you didn’t take your phone out and record but you instead just lived in the moment. I wish it was always like that. Yes, I do love the idea of photos to remember good times and memories, but I don’t like the idea of people consistently knowing where you are or who you are with. For two main reasons these are just not ideal ways to live. I mean for one it can be so hurtful to know you are being left out of something and everyone knows but you, and the fact that if we were to not have any phones or social media live would  be a lot less stressful. That even creates more pressure on the average teenager because we not only have to be a good person for our parents but we have to be acceptable to our friends, which can be a lot to take in. I just hate the fact that we as a society never live through our own eyes.

November 1, 2020 12:46 AM

I hate social media. Whenever I am on it feels like my friends are intentionally trying to make me feel bad. Like look oh my gosh no way it’s another event I wasn’t asked to go to or oh my gosh they really like me the least and nothing good ever comes from it. I for one have not had the greatest experience with friends and I hate it because it’s hard to see the little girls you’ve grown up with throw our friendship out the window and become strangers because they got better offers. It’s like being the forgotten friend and it really does not feel great.

I have always been taught that you couldn’t trust anyone and that you can’t tell anyone anything. This may be harsh but I recently found out why. I have truly never been so disappointed or upset with someone who I called a friend. It was after a football game and my friend had invited me over. I was excited because I haven’t seen her in a while and our friend group was all getting together for halloween. So, after the game I showed up at her house to find that they all went to another house. Now, I being so upset sat on the front porch and called my mom in tears waiting for her to pick me up and from that day on I have always thought that you couldn’t trust anyone. I don’t think it was intentional but it also showed me where priorities were and I wasn’t on the list like with most of my old friends. 

Comparison. It’s the worst thing about social media. If we never compared ourselves to the models or the t.v stars that constantly post in their bikinis and make everyone feel fat and just absolutely disgusting for looking the way they do I feel like we would be a little less stressed about how we are perceived. I hate to say it but I am guilty for comparing myself, but I feel like we all are. I mean these are some of the reasons why people have mental and eating disorders, and it’s sickening.  

November 3, 2020 10:41 PM

I hate how we are all on different worlds. Yes I know technically speaking we all live in the same world, but I’m talking about our perception. People, especially in high school, live in holograms where nothing is wrong but nothing is true. I guess it depends on who you are talking to or who you spend time with on what reality you tend to live in. The people who have it best are the people who look at the world like it’s their own. They are the people who think everyone’s business involves them and that they can do whatever they want and that they are intidal. Which you see is frustrating because this means that if you aren’t living in their reality then they don’t like you or want to be seen with you. It’s hard, for me at least, to actually think that there are people out there who don’t know that the world doesn’t actually revolve around them and only care about how they look to the public eye, it amazes me. I just can’t comprehend the fact that people just are living to better themselves and not others. Which, yes I know you’re supposed to live your life and do what you want to do but wouldn’t you want to use your life to better someone or something bigger than yourself? Maybe I’m crazy but in the hologram I live in the world isn’t perfect and there are people starving and dying and I would rather do anything that I could to help rather than sneak out and party just to benefit my own self.

November 7, 2020 1:21 AM

I think that life is all about perspective and the way we perceive things shows a lot about who we are and how we were raised. Now, I know I keep saying that I don’t look at things the same way as other people and that sounds so cliche but I honestly think it’s true. I just think I have a deeper understanding and appreciation for some things that people in my generation do. For example, I would rather completely get rid of my phone and just live through my own eyes (actually live) rather than live through a phone screen like other people I know. 

November 16, 2020 11:58PM

It’s funny the way the world works. One minute you’re here and the next you’re gone. I mean it’s crazy to think that when you’re gone the world doesn’t stop and it just continues on like nothing even happened. Rocket Ships will take off whether you’re in them or not I guess that’s just how the world works. It’s just hard to think that you matter but like at the same time we don’t. We matter to people and sometimes places but to the rest of the universe it’s almost as if you’re nothing.

I mean what is our purpose actually? I mean don’t get me wrong I do believe in god and he is the reason we are here, but if you think about it actually, what is our purpose for being here? Scientifically speaking, we are balls of mass being told to reproduce on a huge ball in the middle of this thing we call space by definition means nothing. We’re also supposed to believe that this higher power exists, yet magic is fake? I mean I guess that's what makes the higher power a higher power but like the purpose.. doesn’t seem super clear. 

November 19, 2020 4:00 PM 

I for one have always thought that I wasn’t going to live super long. No I don’t wish that but I have always had this feeling that I’m going to die way before my life is fully over. Do you ever get really weird feelings before something bad happens? Well, I do, like the day I broke my nose I had a feeling that something was off or that something bad was going to happen. This feeling I have though is weird though. I often have the same nightmare over and over again of me getting shot or me dying and this weird feeling that I am being watched. Maybe I’m crazy but I have a weird feeling that I’m only going to make it to my 30s. 

Life and death is such a weird topic to me, like if you think about it we are just a brain. That’s how we function and when we’re brain dead our whole body is gone. Maybe I’m dumb for just now realizing that our minds are so powerful but just to think that everything we do is powered by just a small part of our body is crazy to me.

November 22, 2020 2:12 AM 

I would argue that doing something wrong is actually good for us because being brought up perfect will make us rebel. I think that even though we are taught to always do the right thing all the time it makes us want to do the wrong thing even more. I for one know of people who were raised so well but have grown up doing the wrong things because they love the thrill of not being so perfect all the time. I have witnessed this and it’s really interesting to see their perspectives of what they are doing. Most of them say when they were younger they were always taught to be perfect and never even think about doing the wrong things but once they do it it’s like a drug and it makes them feel alive. Which, I think if we do it every once in a while it could prevent a total disaster but I don’t know maybe that’s completly idiotic. 

November 28, 2020 6:36 PM

I am such an idiot sometimes it hurts me to even rethink past thoughts. Like some of my ideas and thoughts are just so far out there it’s.. I don’t even know where they would come from. Thoughts are a crazy topic though, where do they even come from? Where do ideas form? Some can be so intelligente and others are so stupid and random they don’t even make sense. 

I think it’s crazy to think about the idea that famous astronomers and the smartest people in the world have the same thoughts and think the same way while everyone else can’t. Their perception is so much different than ours. What makes them think differently from everyone else? 

December 4, 2020 9:13 PM

I have such a strong appreciation for the stars. They’re free and they’re a main reason we’re alive. I think I resonate with the stars so much because when you have nothing else you can always look up at the stars and see that at least one thing is consistent, the stars are always out. That’s another thing, no matter where you are or who you are at least we’re all under the same stars. I think that they have an underrated beauty and they are so underappreciated because we’re too reliant on the fact that they’re always out there. I think the best people are like stars. It’s almost like the saying why do bad things happen to good people. I think the best people are like the brightest stars, but the thing most people don’t know is that the brightest stars burn out the quickest.