Life can be a difficult proposition for many reasons. They may not always be justifiable or can be swept under the rug. Leading a life without difficulties renders a person incapable of achieving the enormous success that we all desire. Nor do we choose the family in which we are born or the circumstances in which we are raised. However, with that said, the decisions we make are ours and that is what defines and shapes our individuality.
A teenager gets the constant need for approval from his peers and is usually on a rebellious streak. Your self-confidence is always through the roof, while your self-esteem is often determined by others. This age is a solid age of inflection or transition from childhood to adulthood in which a teenager always wants to flee from reality rather than face it head-on. This era opens a Pandora’s box of fear and conflict that leads to a high degree of pessimism and fuels suicidal tendencies among some. Often many choose the path of fleeing. This may be due to a total disregard for reality, fear of the expectations that weigh on them or in search of greener pastures. This is not an exhaustive list, but it represents the main reasons why a teenager has the sudden need to flee from home, parents, and life.
Failures are known to spark those thoughts among teens. The idea of failing at something makes most of us shudder. However, one must realize that success and failure are two sides of the same coin and one must learn, to quote Rudyard Kipling,
“Treat these impostors the same …”
The fear of failure arises due to the expectations that weigh on the individual. A parent may unknowingly impose such a burden on a child that it leads to fear of failure. These expectations are not uncommon among peers as well. Failure, leading to loss of prestige in society, is enough to persecute the faint of heart. Each individual has a different, although specific, coping mechanism. For a veteran of failures, it’s another feather on the edge, but for a successful individual, it can be a serious nightmare. It all comes down to the limits of one person. What one requires is a basic understanding that failure is an integral part of life and is not worth sacrificing and endangering the lives of oneself and others included.
Most adults understand that life is not a bed of roses. It has its own ups and downs, ridges and valleys. But understanding, and even more so, accepting this reality can be challenging. Another important reason adolescents leave their home is the absence of a hospitable and supportive environment. As said before, we cannot choose where or how we are born, it is something that we all must deal with and learn to live with. For some, it is more difficult than for others. Imaginary and abusive environment, ruled by poverty and violence, reeking of gambling and alcohol and at the same time giving rise to domestic violence. Can a teenager deal with all of these at once? We have all heard cases of alcoholic parents indulging in the vilest form of abuse and violence. How long can such torture be tolerated? Once a child enters adolescence, he realizes that running away will be his only option. These runaways are running away from their realities, although there is nothing wrong with this. There is no shame in escaping a crushed fortune for a pleasant future.
The world is full of examples of individuals who are never in sync. Conflicts between parents and children are one of the main reasons for the presence of runaways. Perhaps we have all had fights or skirmishes with our parents due to a clash of ideologies and the selfish nature of humans in general. Parents want what they think is best for the child and for the child to avoid making the same mistakes they do. Teenagers, on the other hand, are explorers and are always looking for new identities. Conflicts can be as simple as high school subject / course selection or as complex as spouse selection, largely evident in India. Parents rarely approve of a child’s decisions, assuming that the child (who is also a teenager) is incapable of making wise decisions. Such conflicts can generate animosity and feelings of ill will. This encourages young people to flee their home to exercise their rights and live a life based on their own set of rules and principles.
We almost always assume that the reasons for fleeing are mostly pessimistic and due to conflict and lack of communication. However, a large part of adolescents also flee in search of greener pastures. With the advent of television and the media around the world, exposure to flamboyance and hope is just a few buttons away. Adolescents in the poorest regions often have high hopes and dream big. In India, we see teenagers, even from the most remote corners of the country, flock to metropolises like Mumbai to earn a lot of money. Mumbai has always fueled teenage dreams of succeeding in Bollywood. Even today’s industry is full of real life examples, Shah Rukh Khan being one of them.
Perhaps most teenagers, running away from home in search of a better standard of living, fail miserably, but none achieved more success than the Honorable Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi himself. Modi ran away from home and abandoned her family in her preadolescence. His fascination with RSS had started quite early, while his poverty and non-consensual child marriage didn’t help either. Modi ran away from home to follow his dream of becoming an RSS pracharak only to end up being the Prime Minister. His family was quite poor and he worked at his father’s tea stand. Its humble origins are no secret. One of the main reasons for this bold step on his part was perhaps to have married, against his will, at a tender age. He is the best example of what keeps teens away from home, symbolizing conflict and high hopes among teens today.
The greatest blame that can be attributed to runaways falls on no one but the adolescents themselves. Of course, parents play an important role in provoking inhospitable conditions and conflicts, but at the end of the day, it is the teenagers who must become more and more complacent, since one cannot be treated like a child forever and growing up is not One option. . Failures and conflicts are an integral part of life and recovering from them is the key. Perhaps the most justifiable reason for such escapism is the search for a better life. The successes may be few, the failures many, but only those who persevere can reach sixteen a day.