A piece of advice for incoming freshmen or any other high schooler who needs a reality check: Relish in being a teenager.

When you enter high school, it’s very easy to get caught up in viewing yourself as “above” the trivialities of high school – a popular mindset among teenagers. I’ve observed this mentality in real life, on social media and in our dialogue, “F— high school, everyone is so childish and immature.”

News flash: We are all immature. We are literally teenagers.

This is supposed to be a time to enjoy being frivolous and childish while we can still get away with it. Instead, students hyper-criticize various teenage subcultures and shame people for not belonging to one that is emotionally detached from high school and adolescence.

This attitude differs from that of someone purely excited for the future or looking forward to college/post high school life.

This idea breeds condescension and isolation from other teenagers. Too many kids pride themselves on being detached from teenage things.

Don’t force yourself to grow up so fast. Indulge in being childish. The fear of being immature should not exist; you are immature, and that’s fun! In reality, these teenage trivialities really aren’t trivial at all.

Guess what? If you allow yourself to embrace the cliches, rallies are exciting and school spirit is fun. Making new friends is rewarding (you don’t actually have to “hate everyone,” even though you tweeted it a million times). Working a minimum wage job at a crappy fast food place is new and weird. Trends and jokes and surrounding yourself in teenage culture are a one-time chance in life. Take advantage of this time.

Sneak out of your house. Teepee your friends. Drive down a long road with the top down and sing. Climb a roof. Go to football games and go ham with the spirit wear. Plan dances. Attend dances. Everything you can think of that you have seen in a cliché teen movie from the 80s.

Hypercriticism of your or your peers’ actions is not edginess, and detachment of popular culture out of fear will only stop you from living a more carefree life.
It makes me sad when I see or hear people so obsessed with being seen as mature and original that it stops them from experiencing once in a lifetime experiences.
I’m not promising all high school experiences are going to be great, but most of them will be better than sitting at home and tweeting about how you hate your school and everyone in it.