Reaching Your Maximum Potential

Sometimes I wonder if people really give any thought to how they spend their lives. How they spend each day, each hour. Most of us (kids, teens and young adults atleast) are content to sit on the couch and watch television. We love video games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto where, like in many virtual games, you go around killing people and blowing things up. This is the new generation's idea of "fun". Teens have another way of kicking back- getting wasted. So many people I know are OBSESSED with getting drunk, every weekend if not every night. Kids in my math class answer questions excitedly and befriend the teacher (who leads the anti drinking and drug program at my school) and then spend their Friday and Saturday nights drinking with each other, even having the nerve to post pictures of them doing this on websites like facebook. I am dismayed as I look through photos of my peers, falling on top of each other with cans of Budwiser in their 17 year old hands.

Why are all these young people filling their lives with such meaningless activities? Why is it so much more attractive to watch people have a conversation on tv than actually engage in one yourself? What is the appeal of alcohol?

These are only two examples of the many ways people try to escape from life, from their feelings and their problems and even their ideas. In turn they are escaping from themselves, shutting out their personality, their mind.

If I have learned one thing in my 17 years on this planet, it is that people need to have creative outlets. From the time I was in elementary school, I was writing about the love, hate, tragedies and comedies in my life --expressing any feeling I had, good or bad. My diaries were critisized sharply by my family, who read it and thought my feelings were too negative and that there was something wrong with writing them on paper. But actually, all of those entries and the good, the bad, and the ugly feelings I expressed in them helped to make me into the calm, happy person I am today. I feel like I have become a successful human being emotionally; what my parents and siblings mistook for instability and fragility was really just me going through a very profound personal discovery. I realized that I was extremely sensitive, and stopped taking things so personally. I stopped getting my feelings hurt, my heart broken. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started loving myself, because I could- I knew myself inside and out. By getting all my emotions out through writing, I was able to examine them, and deal with them rationally. Now, I can handle anything you can throw my way. I'm proud to say I'm a very strong person.

I am still a writer at heart, but I've developed a hobbie of painting. On my weekends you won't find me drinking with friends, but rather coming up with new ideas for a piece of art. I will always treasure having ways to express myself, my feelings or my views of the world.

The point of all this is that we need to live our lives p r o d u c t i v e l y. We need to use our minds to their maximum potential, not destroy them. Turn off the tv. Start writing. Start painting. Start doing whatever it is that you love to do. Make music. Go hiking. Think beautiful thoughts and create beautiful things. Discover what you stand for, who you are, and EXPRESS IT! Show the world that your more than just a couch potato, or another underage drinking statistic.

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