As high schoolers and teenagers, we are in our prime “coming-of-age” time that we see portrayed everywhere: books, movies and just about every media outlet we use. The ideas of growing up and finding yourself are shown everywhere, from movies like The Breakfast Club to books like Stephen King’s The Body. They all push the idea that you should grow up, mature and find yourself as soon as possible; the younger the better.

       Simply becoming mature and growing up is not the problem we face, however. The problem is that due to this media influence, we tend to rush ourselves to get to that level instead of enjoying our youth while we still can. You can be mature and still have fun, and we need to stop hurrying this process. In the end, if we grow up too fast, we will miss our childhood and the fun we could have had, had we not been in such a rush to mature.

       The idea that we need to grow up right after high school, or even while we are still in high school, is one of the most unrealistic things we could be taught. The fact is, not everyone wants to or should have to mature and “grow up” as soon as they can. Forcing this idea that being mature or having your whole life planned out can cause us to create false realities and have much higher expectations than we should at this age. We will spend the rest of our lives wishing we had not grown up so soon and expect more out of people than we will end up getting.

       We need to accept the fact that we will not automatically know how the world works or how to do taxes as soon as we turn 18 and just have fun with our youth while we can. If all we do throughout our lives is follow the rules and judge people who enjoy having fun and leaving behind that grown-up spirit, that means something is wrong. We all need to have fun for as long as we can, and that means a longer period of time for some and a smaller amount for others. However, nobody should be rushing to mature; it will come naturally. And being mature does not mean the fun spirit is sucked out of someone. Ferris Bueller (while still being quite an unrealistic movie about what teens do while skipping school) said it best: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”