I'm a vegan, but I'm really bad at it. I'm a feminist, but I'm even worse at that. I love learning, but I recently failed a spanish test. Being a teenager means being a walking, talking contradiction. I have been struggling the past few years trying to figure out “the answer,” but all the information I learn just makes me more confused. Two days ago I started hysterically crying because I was so overwhelmed and exhausted with learning. I have a responsibility to act on the knowledge I receive; however, I have no idea what I am supposed to do, perpetually frozen in a state of fear. Fear that I will disappoint my parents who have set me up to succeed within the confines of society. Fear of the unknown. Fear of seeming inadequate. For me, thinking about doing anything that will disappoint anyone or close any doors for my future is like jumping off a cliff. But harder. You know you're attached to a cord when you jump off a cliff and will be fine, later resuming the same life you had before; the same cannot be said for making real life decisions that change the course of your life.

I was recently in english class and asked my english teacher if getting educated was a contradiction to learning. We are learning about ourselves and freedom and liberation, but isn’t staying in the confines of society, which is inherently oppressive, isn’t worrying about grades to get into a college with a good name so you somehow are validated by those around you, isn't this all oppressing our instinct to be ourselves and live life the way we want to?

I don't know how many people reading this have ADD or ADHD but I do, and I take adderall every day for it. I like to think that ADD would have made you really good hunter in past when instinct was all that kept you alive - running from something that’s sole purpose was to rip your head off and feed you to its cubs. In our society I take a pill in order to “normalize” myself. Let me just say, I am the least productive person without those pills; in fact, I am on adderall right now as I write this essay. If I wasn’t, I would probably be off somewhere laughing about god knows what, or netflix binging, or scrolling through one of the many social media websites that I have accounts on. The latter is all stuff that I love doing, but it comes at a cost. If I do that one night (and it has happened many a time in my high school career), say the night before a big essay that I haven't written is due, I end up getting a bad grade on the essay, no big deal, right?  Now, fast forward a couple weeks, when my classmates are asking each other what they got and what they wrote about, but if I didn’t study hard enough or didn’t grasp the material or just don't get the point of what I was learning the night before the essay was due, I always end up feeling ashamed, or patronized or a lacking contributor to society. Teachers have always reminded us that it’s about learning not the grade; however, there is something to be said about having to chemically alter myself so I can meet the demands of a school as rigorous as Dalton. This stigma that grades define your value is not set by any one person in particular, but it mantra that has been repeated since before you could count to 100, it is something that we as people living in this day and age have just come to accept.  Is it okay that we let a few letters that are arbitrarily given to us dictate our happiness? our worth? our future?  The truth life is unfair and this is the price we have to pay for living in the world that we do.