Students have a serious and disturbing tendency of thinking that some of the problems they face in high school will make or break their lives.
The sad thing is, most are not thinking of their academics or their extracurricular activities. Students put too large of an emphasis on teenage drama, and too small of one on what really matters.
More often than not Janey/Johnny is much more concerned about how that guy/girl has not texted her back yet than she is about her massive AP Government test the next day. When Janey/Johnny fails her test, she then wonders how she could have done so badly, and determines that the teacher hates her, she has too much to do and not enough time, the test was impossible and that she never gets to do anything fun anymore. She concludes that her life is much worse than that of a person’s in a third world country.
With this conclusion in mind, she makes it her sole mission to tell all of her friends about how terrible her life is, using such terms and phrases as “FML” and “the world does not understand me.” This spreads the belief to other students, as they to begin to conclude that their wealthy West County lifestyles just are not good enough, and their “troubles” are such heavy burdens.
These thoughts then lead kids to arrogance and a false sense of being a unique rebel against the “system.” They then begin to believe that they are better than school and the large amount of effort that is needed to become successful. By the time they and/or others around them realize that they have destroyed themselves, it is far too late.
This whole sequence of events could have been avoided if Janey simply thought about what was important and studied for the test.
