As I grow up and become a working adult in society, complete with responsibilities, a job, and future plans, I begin to reflect on my role in this society. Taking everything I was brought up with and everything else that I learned in and since college, I have learned to look at my world critically and not just take things as they are presented to me (about time, right!). However, I am caught in a spot where I do not want to be overly analytical and turn into a cynic just for the sake of it, but I also don't want to go through life naive just doing what I am told. So where do I go from here?
Currently, I am in a phase of my life where I find more at fault with society than positive. I may be old-fashioned or maybe this is just because of the environment I am in right now, but I do not like where my society is headed. There is so much emphasis on looks, money, clothing, stuff, and so much is done through computers; it just seems like we get more and more superficial and less natural, less human as time goes on. Don't get me wrong, there are many great triumphs we have made in the last few decades, but at what cost? When I watch TV and see the sorts of things everyone calls entertainment and all the advertising that is telling us all these things we need when we don't really need them at all and when there are websites to help us find our soul mates because we are incapable of doing that on our own, it just bothers me. As a teacher I am not sure how to present all this to my students because they can't just fight it, they need to know how to succeed in it, as do I. More importantly they need to develop their own opinions on it, which I am also working out.
But then here is the question: should I put my energy into fighting back against society, should I flee society because I do not agree with it and it is not going to change, or do I somehow find a way to integrate myself into it because I can't live without out it? Here is the catch, it is my life dream to help the people at the bottom of this society who are most taken advantage of and who really need someone their as their advocate; I am not willing to give up on the children because they had no choice in the life they were brought into and I want to give them some choice. But when I do that, do I give away my own choice? How can I create a lifestyle for myself that adheres to my own morals enough to keep me happy, at the same time coexisting enough with societies morals so that I can still function and work within society and maybe change it? Being a young adult these are the things I am going to be facing soon and it is scary as hell. I want to be the kind of person I feel right being and I will not be forced into any lifestyle I am not just because society is telling me I should; but I also want to stay in the US and cannot become a hermit who lives in the woods because that does not do a damn thing and does not help anyone. Any advice would be welcomed. Maybe I just need a new perspective, because again, who am I to think society needs changing? Maybe I am the one that is just stuck in the past and needs an update.
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