There's no such thing as teenagers-Fortune Cookie #8

That's right! Until some guy writing for Reader's Digest made up the term, "teenager" to refer to all 13-19 year-olds in 1941, there was no such thing as a teenager.

There were two major phases in life: child and adult.

Our modern day teenagers were the years 1 B.C. to 1940's (Anno Domini) adults! That means I should be considered an adult! If you're reading this, then you, too, should most likely be considered an adult--but you aren't.

Why? What's changed? I'm not really sure all the transitions, but something has happened that all began in 1941! People's expectations for teenagers are that we manage (if not barely) to graduate high school and find a college as well as get a job, go to prom, make friends and perhaps somewhere along the way make our beds once or twice.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Did you know that before this whole "teenager" gig was invented, 11-year-old boys were actually captains of their own ships at sea and would be in charge of not only their crew and ship, but whomever they captured's--often very wanted criminals to the throne--ship, crew and often unruly captain as well! That's right--fifty year old men used to take orders from eleven-year-olds!

Clara Barton, the woman who started the Red Cross? When she was fourteen she was the head nurse over her entire village!

George Washington had all of his college courses done by fifth grade--and not because he was some super-human wunderkind or Asian either. It was because he could not afford not to! He already had the intelligence to work on those kind of complex calculus problems and he needed to go into the frontier and work!

We have that same capacity to be doing college work. We have the ability to handle ruling a country--Joan of Arc was like, what, seventeen I believe, when she lead a rebellion!

Schooling used to end in eighth grade and college courses were for us "teenagers"

Do you sense that something is missing during these added-on to our lives that drag on and that are called the HIGH SCHOOL YEARS?!!

Because I do.

So do some other teens out there. More about them in posts I will write for you at a later (but soon!) date.

If you want more info, though, you can check out www.therebelution.com or check out the book, Do Hard Things by Brett and Alex Harris (two amazing guys I had the privilege of being with yesterday for four hours).