Reality Check

Everyone’s high school experience is different, some fun, some awful stories, and a lot of hard work to get accepted to some expensive university. Based off where I live the school district boundary lines put me in line to attend Wayzata High School. Going to that school, I thought nothing of it, my sister went, I had drove by a thousand times, it was just the way of life. Attending the school wasn’t just going to school to learn, it was of course, like any other high school, a huge fashion show for not only the girls, but the guys as well. Girls had to have the best jeans, shirts, and sweaters, purses that doubled as backpacks, jewelry and hairstyles. It was like stepping into a jungle of judgment. But of course, when your there, up until your senior year, you’re a part of it. The jeans were typically over a hundred dollars, and you could never have enough. This being the only high school I had and would ever know, this became normal to me. When I would see people at stores or church or Target, I would wonder why they didn’t have the coolest newest jeans. It’s all I was used to. The craziest thing I heard at my school was when I was a freshman though. A girl in my grade got a diamond ring from her boyfriend and “wished the diamond would have been a little bigger.” That’s what I knew all this money and materialism wasn’t normal. Although this school was a little wealthier due to it being out in the warm suburbs, I knew this was probably not the way every school was. This school shaped me because it gave me a reality check. When I was whining to my mom about all the designer nonsense I didn’t have, I really should have just appreciated what I did have and that I got to go to a good school. This shapes me every day. This lesson has stuck with me for years and years. I need to be thankful for what I have and it shapes almost every thought I have. Even when my friends complain how they want this and need that and they’ll go with their mom so she’ll buy it instead of go alone, I just hope they understand they have more than they actually need and are lucky to have it. What’s also shaped my life is knowing that some of these kids who get all these materialistic things thinking they need them, they will be better and make them an overall better person will never learn to be thankful and understand how much they have. Getting what they want will be all they know and they will never come to really appreciate what they have. In the end, being thankful for what you have is what you need to keep in the back of your mind.