I was lying on my bed, desperately exploring my phone for something to keep my mind busy. I was afraid of my own thoughts sometimes. They tended to force me out of this comfortable cocoon that protects me from my fears.

My mom came into my room to see what I was doing. Needless to say, she did not approve of my dilly-dallying.

“Really Simon?” she said with the sort of angry, disapproving tone that, when coming from a loved one, can pierce the skin like a bullet. “You need to be doing something. Whether it’s studying for the SAT, doing homework, or trying to find out what you’re doing this summer. Have you even looked into anything since I last talked to you about it? I hate that if I want you to do anything, I have to be constantly nagging you. I’m telling you, I’m not organizing you’re whole summer for you again. I won’t do it!” She finished dramatically and looked at me, waiting for a response.

“Ok,” was all I could get out. She had succeeded in making me feeling inadequate. “Why did everybody have to always be ‘doing something’?” I wanted to ask. “Why do we always have to be completing meaningless tasks, just so that we complete more meaningless tasks? When does it end?” I wanted to blurt out, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t say this because I know that she would just dismiss it as teenage angst, and nothing hurts more than having your inner feelings rejected. Mainly, I couldn’t say this because I was afraid that it really would have been teenage angst, so I kept it in a bottle right next to me in my cozy cocoon.

“Can you give me something other than ‘OK’? Whenever I tell you to do something, you just say ‘OK’, and then you don’t do it.” She hollered.

“Ok,” I said. “I’ll do it right now.” I took out my computer to prove this to her. Apparently she was not satisfied.

“And your room is a mess!” She said as she looked around. She began to organize whatever she could. “How many times do I need to tell you to put a towel back after you’re done with it? Is that THREE towels?!” She screamed as she picked them up and folded them in her arms. She noticed the distraught look on my face and stopped what she was doing to walk over and sit on the foot of my bed. “I don’t mean to stress you out, I know junior year is hard. But I’m thinking about what’s best for you. If you can do well this year, it will open up your options for college. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.”

It sure didn’t seem to me like she was thinking about what was “best for me”. I knew parents liked to live vicariously through their kids, and I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I tended to obey my parents’ wishes. It seemed to me that I might have been perfectly happy with myself, but because nobody else was and I wasn’t strong enough to ignore this disapproval, I basically became a product of what other people wanted me to be.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked me in an apologetic tone.

“Nothing.” I responded.

“Ok well… just try to get some of those things done, ok?” she asked.

“Ok” I said. She got up to clean up my room a bit more and then left.

She had won, but she wasn’t happy. “Why can’t he just want this for himself?” She thought to herself. “That way I wouldn’t have to yell at him. If only he knew what I know.”

After she left I picked up the SAT practice book from the floor. I was going to study for the SAT so I could do as well as possible on the actual test. Then I would use this score to get into the best college possible and use that degree to get the best job possible. I would hopefully be able to use “hard work” and “perseverance” to be as successful as possible in that career and then I would be able to start a family. I would then train my kids to do the same exact things that I did, and they would teach the same things to their kids, who would teach the same things to their kids. Some people might have been able to use these thoughts as motivations or goals, but they had the opposite effect on me. I hated that this was the plan that was laid out for me at birth and I hated the way that me hating it made me seem like nothing more than a moody, rebellious teenager. I hated that part of me wanted nothing more than to break free from this cycle but another part of me secretly wanted to just open up the SAT book and step on to this predetermined path. I hated that I didn’t know which option to choose and I hated that I would never know if I had chosen the right one, so I picked up my hone and checked to see if anything had happened in the last couple of minutes.