Rebellion Has it’s Reasons to Return

Children and teenagers often rebel when they feel confined by rules, believing that they themselves should be able to make their own decisions, take their own risks, and make their own mistakes. What then, does it signify, when an adult rebels?

Between the ages of 18 and 21, depending on the culture one lives in, we are told that we are now old enough to make our own decisions in life. Finally, we think to ourselves, we can sit in the driver seat and decide for ourselves exactly where it is we go in life, the timeframe in which we undertake our life transformation in, and the location in which it occurs. We choose our choice.

It is no longer required for us to validate our plans via our parents. It is similarly no longer required that we seek approval of the places we wish to spend our time. It is no longer required that we seek approval of the people with whom we wish to spend our time--this perhaps, is the single most deadly change in being in charge of our own lives.

No longer are we drowned in remarks about not getting in with the ‘wrong crowd’, or hanging out in areas which leave a lot to be desired. In place of such remarks we find more subtle forms of communication from those who care about us, and frankly, often know best. The monologue which once drove us crazy with anger is now substituted with a watered down comment or in some cases, a simple shrug or similar nonverbal communication.

It is then that we realise, advice wasn’t so bad after all. Advice. That is what the lectures boiled down to, though at the time, this was not seen, for rebellion had been activated and had created a sort of tunnel vision experienced otherwise only by the narrow-minded and the colossally determined.

What if, rebellion had run its course and ended, perhaps prematurely in one’s teens? Is it a case that this individual is ready for responsibility and by the same token ready to take advice on board in an mature way? Or is it like a sickness that hasn’t quite reached a head, and will leave suspicions of a return later in life?

As a teenager, I would have said the former was true. Today, my opinion has been reformed. Now I believe in individual circumstances. Now I believe it cannot be concluded that rebellion will rear its ugly head once again if it hasn’t enjoyed a full stretch in the time it most commonly occurs.

Though I also acknowledge that if a container has been put on rebellion, this itself is enough to cause mayhem later in life. Perhaps it could be said that it depends on what happens to us in the phases immediately after our teenage years. Maybe it is about allowing the post-teenage freedom phase to run its course, knowing for an extended period that you, and you only, are sitting in the driver seat.

Possibly this is the time where one decides--consciously or otherwise--what they will throw away for good, what they will put away for later, and what they will keep for now.