I’ve heard it said that the music you listen to when you’re fourteen will affect you for the rest of your life. That it changes you permanently, and it helps make you into the person you’re going to be. I can’t really have an opinion on this, since I’m only fifteen, but I do think it’s possible. Looking back at the past years, I see a completely different person from who I am now, and I do agree that the music I listened to last year has made a big impact on my life. I’m not the same as I was last year, and last year I was different than who I was the year before that. There’s a possibility that who I am now will be the same person I am next year, but there’s also a possibility I’ll be a completely different person.

The truth is, I just don’t know yet. Everyone says I’m “too young.” Too young to understand, too young to be told, too young to do anything on my own. But if my mind is mature enough as to take whatever music I listened to last year and ingrain it into my personality permanently, how am I too young for anything? Of course, that could just be my sense of teenage rebellion coming out, but who’s to say I’m not right. I know every experience from here on out will keep effecting and changing me, but if I’ve already been set in some of my ways, why am I still considered such a child? Adult is something that is seen as someone who is mature, someone who is older, who knows the score and is secure in their beliefs and values. But what so many people just aren’t getting is that a lot of teenagers have the resolve to stick by their values and beliefs, sometimes even more than an “adult” has. But of course, my opinion doesn’t count yet, because I’m only fifteen.

Getting back to the point, I don’t know if the music I listened to last year will change me forever, because the music I listen to this year may have that same affect. I don’t know about the music, or books, or experiences you’re exposed to when you’re fourteen affecting you for life, but I do feel like it has some deep truth to it. The things I do now, the people I hang around with, the music I expose myself to, and the books I read, will have a great effect on me. Teenage years are the years when you lay the foundations. Sure, the surface stuff, and maybe even some deeper things will change in college and the working world, but right here, and right now, is when we really find out who we are.

The years from thirteen to eighteen are the biggest in a person’s life. We’re in school, learning and deciding what we like and what we don’t. We’re meeting a billion different people and deciding who we like to be around and who we don’t. We’re discovering our taste in music and literature. This is the deciding time, when we figure out who we are outside of our parent’s influence; because we’re all impressionable, and we’re all scared. Scared to try something we haven’t before, scared to meet new people and take risks, but above all else scared to admit to ourselves that we might not be who we thought we were last year. At the same time though, we’re so entirely unafraid. Teenagers are a walking contradiction, fearing everything, and nothing. We take risks and try new things, even though it scares us to death.

That’s the beauty of being a teenager. You have no fear at the same time that you’re filled with it. Because we know that we are different than we used to be, and we know, deep down, that to be the person we want to be, we have to try new things. We have to take the risks that scare us and not look back. It’s all about perspective, and ours is the best. Say something that’ll cause problems! Who cares? We’ll be on to the next stop in the road I a few years anyway. It’s the mentality that this is our time to make mistakes and to try on about fifty different personalities; because we can, and because we have to. We don’t know who we are! But we know that these years will define us, and make us who we want to be. So that’s what we do. We get in fights, and make mistakes, and screw our entire life up, all for the sake of finding out who we’re going to be for the next fifty or so years of our life. And it’s all worth it in the end.

But who am I to tell you this? To make this kind of a statement? Truth is, I’m only fifteen.