“You’re always on that phone of yours, you’re addicted! You are always out of the house. You spend too much time with your friends! Your grades aren’t good enough, do you even spend any time on homework? Why are you so lazy?”

Well, can any of you relate? Maybe your parents have said these things to you, maybe it’s one of your grandparents or your great aunt Nikki that are always harping on you. The older generation just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the life of the teenager anymore. The truth is, we all grow up differently, and just as grandma’s hairs turn grey, so the times do change. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, but for us teenagers, it doesn’t matter. If the newest, coolest, and greatest smartphone is up for grabs, there’s no doubt it’s gonna be mine. Dad just doesn’t understand because he’s trying his uttermost to keep the rotary dial era from dying.

So, fellow teenagers, how do you spend your time? Do you cringe just a tiny bit when your mother tells you you’re too lazy? Maybe one of your little brain cells is jumping up and down, trying to tell you she’s right, even though there’s no way you’re going to admit it. She may say good grades are more important than having a good time on the weekend. She’s out of her mind, isn’t she? She must have had no social life herself, growing up in that hick town she can’t even remember how to pronounce.

Now, you may not appreciate me telling you this, but a balance between family, friends, academic studies and social media is extremely important. It seems that most teenagers zone in on one thing they find interesting or enjoy doing, and spend all their time on that. A gamer will spend all his time gaming. A skateboarder will spend all his time skateboarding. A social-media addict will spend all his time on his phone. A clarinetist will spend all his time playing the clarinet, and I’m sure you get my point. As a teenager, you are probably beginning to understand that you need a variety of skills in order to get through life. You’ll need social skills, academic skills, time management skills, leadership skills, and maybe you’ll even need clarinet skills. You can spend all your free time practicing clarinet in the abandoned dog park where nobody can hear you, if you want. You might become really, really good at clarinet, but you’ll end up as an isolated and lonely adult with crazy clarinet skills and no social skills. You’ll miss out on so many opportunities. You won’t be able to associate with your fellow humans, and you might even miss out on fame.

Therefore, I advise you to branch out. Spend your time on various things, so that you can develop all of the skills you’ll need to be successful in life. Put your phone down for a while, but not for forever. Pick up your Pre-Calculus textbook, even though you won’t need to use the quadratic formula or anything else you learn from it while you are a touring clarinetist. It’ll please the older generation, even though it’s not necessary. Spend time with fellow teenagers so that your social skills are better than the skills of my pet turtle. Don’t forget about family time, though, because you have an entire lifetime to spend with your family and you’ll have to get along for most of it. Teenagers, stop being lazy. Great aunt Nikki might tell you that you’re useless, but there are so many opportunities for you to prove her wrong. Get out and change the world!