Why Teenagers Should Focus on the “Now” of Life

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Camila Fowler

      As teenagers, we are encouraged and almost forced to focus on making our futures as successful as possible. The pressures of growing up call for countless mental breakdowns, stressful college visits, late night work sessions and an attempt to grasp onto the fleeting moments of our childhood. We are expected to break our backs and murder our love for learning all for a degree that will carry us through the rest of our life. Society has taught us to focus on the future and reflect on the past, but we were never taught to value and enjoy the present. 

      It’s no wonder all teens are miserable. We are always focusing on moving forward, so much so that we no longer get the chance to take a breath of fresh air and be a kid. Our technology and lifestyles have bound us as prisoners of the indoors and confined our minds to a drone-like routine of waking up, going to school, doing homework and then doing it all over again. These mindless charades are all for a workforce where we will be trapped for the rest of our lives. If society valued the ideology of living in the present and enjoying all that it has to offer, more citizens would be able to genuinely live to the fullest and appreciate the beauties of life.

      Unfortunately, we tend to ignore the little things when we should value them the most. If only we shifted our focus more purposefully: paying attention to the way the sun feels against your skin, the feeling in your gut as you jump into a pile of leaves, the sound of chirping birds flooding our ears, the way the wind blows through your hair--taking along all your problems with it--the way it feels to realize the beauty that nature and life bestows. 

      As a kid, we used to raid the streets. Our hands and legs were covered in chalk, our knees scraped up by the rough pavement that aligned the streets, with our faces gleaming with smiles that could be seen miles away. We lived in the “now.” It didn’t matter what we had to do that day and about the events that took place in the past. We were living in the moment and enjoying every second of it. But as we grew up and life started to get more real, walls were built between our true personalities, and the walls of adulthood went up. So much is taking away from our present that we aren’t ever going to be able to see our true selves blossom and experience the beauty of life. 

       By focusing on living in the moment, your future and past self benefit even more and you are able to strive towards that bright future that you want oh so badly. Your motivation and passion for life will bloom on top of it all. Don’t lose sight of the little things, because when you allow your past and future to blind you, you are signing away your happiness and the adventures of life. 

  The “now.” It holds a somewhat ominous connotation, but its meaning is truly simple at its core. Go be a kid. Let yourself breathe for the first time in what feels like a decade. Find happiness in the little things because, in the scheme of life, this moment, right now, will never be the same. Once it passes, you can never get it back.