Ferris High: Self-knowledge part of growth

Becoming a “grown-up” is no easy task.

The process involves learning to walk, learning to ride a bike, learning that “no” is not a word commonly acceptable to use with your parents, learning that a deadline is a deadline (no matter how hungry your dog was), and most cheesily but importantly of all: learning about yourself.

Some of our best self-learning takes place in high school.

What better opportunity do we have as teenagers to experiment with our likes and dislikes in both friends and hobbies than at a place where a couple thousand young people from all different walks of life are placed together and told they can try almost any class or activity they want?

Some take the “experimentation” idea to an unhealthy and unfortunate extreme and have to learn their lessons in a bit more dramatic and untimely fashion, but in the end, we all learn.

The way we are upon entering high school is, if we’re lucky, rather different than when we leave it.

Not because we were substandard then, but because to really get all there is to get out of high school, we need to leave knowing more than how to order a soda in three languages or the capital of Djibouti.

Though it may sound sad, with any luck our groups of friends have changed slightly along the way as well, because if we all still have “oh my gosh everything” in common with the BEST FRIENDS 4EVER we declared in sixth grade, someone has either experienced very little growth or continues to live more for others than for his or her own whims.

So, if there is one lesson we need all walk away with in June, it is that while it may feel good to be liked, and it may be easy to simply “do as the Romans do” and blend in with what seems most popular, it feels far better (and is much easier in fact) to dance to your own drumbeats and be liked by showing everyone your moves.

Yes, in the end, though our journeys to “grown-up land” certainly do not finish when we walk out of high school for the last time, we sure do leave with some priceless building blocks unattainable in any other period of our lives.