High school is a lot.

When you add a job and social life that you are expected to have, extracurriculars for college, your own hobbies, and finding time to sleep, good luck. On top of that, half the teachers act like their classes are the only thing going on in our lives.

Meanwhile they are the ones pressing us about college, our savings, and plans for after we graduate. Your managers at your minimum wage job who make it their whole life expect the same.

High school is hard, and it is especially hard senior year. It is a lot to put onto someone, to ask them to act like adults, kids, and teenagers, and control everything they do all at once.

Adults love to use the phrase “I was your age once too.” They do not seem to realize how much the world has changed and evolved since they were the same age as us. They do not seem to realize how different things have become. I mean, college prices have increased by 32% while the average pay has only increased 14%.

If course work is already so heavy in classes, why do we have all of these other expectations on teenagers as well? Yes, you were our age once, so why have you suddenly forgotten how hard it actually is?

I am on deadline to write this column. I also have missing essays in my College Composition class. Writing is what I do and yet I am so tired I can hardly think clearly enough to form a decent sentence.

If you ask me, which if you’re reading this, you have, everything needs to take at least two steps back. Classes need to stop giving so much busy work and focus on what matters, work schedules need to be flexible to how early you have to wake up for school, and the adults who push for more and more from us need to realize it’s not just their world.

The world could heavily benefit from an increase in empathy and connection. Teenagers specifically could benefit from more leniency, in school and in life. The balance is already hard to achieve, let’s not make it harder.