Misled | Teen Ink

Misled

May 26, 2012
By akstory GOLD, West Palm Beach, Florida
akstory GOLD, West Palm Beach, Florida
11 articles 3 photos 19 comments

Favorite Quote:
It is our choices . . . that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. <br /> ~ J. K. Rowling


All the shows we watched as children. Every one of those books they read to us. Even the word problems in our second grade math class. All of these things have misled us. They brought us to think that someday our prince will come and we will all live happily ever after. They made us think that each one of us is one in a million and everybody in the world is a good person. We were taught that that the world was all about the fact that Sandy had 8 apples and she gave 3 apples to Ben. The only question they told us that mattered was how many apples did Sandy have now? We were misled.

Disney princesses, the perfect little girls that no one will ever be. But that’s not what they told us. They told us we were all princesses on the inside. They always acted like we could do anything we set our mind to. Yeah, we can. But not without rejection. Rejection, rejection, rejection. A thousand times over.

You want to be a dancer? How sweet. Your dance teacher told you that you were going to grow up and be famous? Well that’s not what the judges on So You Think You Can Dance say. Your choir director said you were an amazing singer? Go and see what American Idol says. You got a 100 on your English short story? Once you try and get it published, you realized that you were misled.

Why does the world prepare for things that aren’t actually out there? Why do they tell us that we can do anything, but once we try, they shoot us back down? Why do they read us books where the only problem is that Eeyore is sad, but everything's better once Winnie and his friends cheer him up?

They mislead us with utopian movies, books, music, and everything around us. The world is not perfect, and it never will be. They need to start showing us what the real world is, not just making everything seem perfect. We may not have these wonderful childhoods full of hearts, stars, and singing, but at least that way; we wouldn’t have all been misled.


The author's comments:
I wrote this piece because I was just thinking about how true it is. Even though I'm not quite in the real world yet either, I'm a lot more exposed to it than I used to be and I know what it's like. Everything that mattered as a child and everything they taught us is absolutely irrelevant in our lives now.

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This article has 2 comments.


on Jul. 30 2012 at 4:47 pm
You are beyond right. Kids aren't learning anything real these days. It's sad to think about, but it is so true. Thank you. 

TroyD said...
on Jun. 14 2012 at 8:30 am
I like this one a lot. I think the issue is very relatable and I really like the line where "rejection" is repeated for emphasis.