(S) i swear the title explains it all.

Teenagers

Do you ever wonder why, although the same age group, some of us are called teenagers and some, young adults?

Think young adult and what is the first thing that comes to mind? A smartly-dressed young man with obvious manners and upbringing, who carries himself well in society, making mature decisions that benefit the majority, morally sound ones at that. Someone we can trust. Trust, to do the work assigned to them, being resourceful in times of confusion. That would be an ideal young adult.

Then we think about teenagers. Unruly bunch of children who couldn’t give a thought about the well-being of others, caught up in their own personal pleasures and childish arguments with other like-teenagers. Dressed up in the latest fashion trends and constantly rebelling against their teachers and disobeying the rules.

But in retrospect, it all comes down to one thing, mentality. What defines mentality? Mentality is the way of thought of people and their outlook on things, or their perspective. What is a teenager’s mentality? Having fun, only living for the moment and not taking any responsibility for their actions. This then relates to maturity. What is maturity? It is the state in which an individual can take a step back and based on slow and careful consideration in accord to the society’s ethics, think about the wisest course of action that has the most beneficial long-term results. Take that and compare it to a teenagers perspective and it appears that the two are incompatible.

However, when we take maturity and look at a young adult, the results are strikingly similar.

It is why when we young kids act rashly, adults coin our actions as ‘a passing phase’. Yes, we children do mature, just that the rate of it differs from each individual. What affects or decides, our transition from children to either the branch of teenager or the branch of young adult? Understandably, society plays a huge role in our development. Yet, in the grand scheme of all things, in time, we teenagers, will merge with those young adults to become mature adults in our own rightful way.