From the Womb to the Jail Cell | Teen Ink

From the Womb to the Jail Cell

December 9, 2007
By Anonymous

Honestly, I am flat out sick of the way our generation is treated. What ever happened to freedom? Has it died with the rest of our society? The way someone’s life is lived should be decided by that person and that person only. Everyday we are forced to hear rules that supposedly keep us in line. I ask you, where is this line? I sure as hell can’t find it. To think that we are a product of how everyone else wants us to be makes me wish everyone saw through the brick walls that have been built to separates us from our true selves. In this place we call home, we have no chance to find out who we really are.

I believe society is so consumed in fear that we can’t even determine what is truly right and wrong. Our fears have amounted to a list of rules that we hide behind to give us closure. Parents won’t even let their kids go out on the streets in fear that they may fall victim to some horrible accident or get into trouble. It seems that our parents have gone from guardians to prison guards. I have been led to believe that before I was born, things seemed to be in the proper order. Kids spent their time outdoors and didn’t live in fear of the future, but in the hopes to become the future. The only lines that they had drawn for them have been already broken by our generation. Do you think that what we believe in to be a normal lifestyle now is going to be the same in twenty years? If we continue living the way we live now, then I believe we are going to cause ourselves even more problems in the time to come.

What world do I live in where I can’t even make my own decisions? At eighteen I am still stuck with no option in how I live my life without ending up homeless or worse. Our society has created a machine in which we can either follow and live a linear, average life, or we can create our own path and have a very small chance of success. People need to sit back and realize that they are so much bigger than the product the machine pushes us to be and all we need to do is change the blind standards that are set for us by our elders. I applaud every person who has ever tried to live his life differently and break out of a life that seems oh so redundant from person to person. If we could all just make a little change in our lives instead of being insignificant cogs in the machine, we might just have a chance at a better future. It may seem like a stretch, and may seem impossible, but if everyone did their part, it could work. Until then, I’ll just sit here eating off the plate that has been prepared for me and hope that something will drastically change the way my generation lives.


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This article has 1 comment.


Imagine said...
on Dec. 30 2008 at 8:31 pm
As I was reading that, I felt like someone took the words I think directly out of my mind. I only wish there was more detail. Do your views of people choosing their own paths apply to laws about abortion and gay marriage? And do you believe the generation just years behind you, mine perhaps, holds any hope? Oh, how I wish I could gather a group of people so open-minded and ready to make things as they are. Anyway, beautiful article. The only thing left for you to do now is get out there and make the change. Get the world ready for me--for my eighteenth birthday to be a day I'll know I can change the world.



.:-imagine-:.