Breaking Up Cliques

 By: Zeanna Hawk
Every day students at Willow Canyon are rushing and pushing in the lunch lines to go sit with their same group of friends.
Why are teenagers so afraid to branch out? We get told to have fun and meet new people by parents and counselors, yet we are still sitting with the same friends we have known since kindergarten.
There are more then two thousand students at Willow Canyon. The majority have friends, but what about the rest of the students who don’t have friends?
With as many students as there are at school, everyone is bound to have a friend, right? But instead, everyone stays in their comfort zone of friends and won’t risk being vulnerable.
Imagine having no friends--no one who cares how you feel, no one to have fun with. There are a number of teenagers who feel they are not good enough. Is this how we want our school to be known, or more importantly is this how we want people around us to feel?
Everyone has problems--at times they feel they’re not good enough, don’t have the right backpack, the right clothes to be “cool” or “popular.” If you agree with this belief, then act upon it. When you see that a person is alone or without a friend, let them know they matter too.
My thoughts are: Be nice to everyone, even if you don’t personally care how he or she feels. There is a quote by the famous philosopher Plato that says, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Bottom line: life is hard enough within yourself and worse when you’re being dumped on from someone else. This is what Plato was saying. You may say someone’s “ugly” or “not funny” and this might be a harmless joke to you. A few minutes later you forget what you did or said to that person. But they remember, and it hurts them; it makes them feel as though they are worthless. Everyone has been teased, and everyone knows what it feels like.
I am tired of people grouping others as jocks, nerds, outcasts and beauty queens. I am tired of people being teased and mocked by their peers.
Who says you can’t branch out of your clique, your friends, or your fears. You should be in control of yourself, and only you decide whether you want to branch out or not. Be you; be unique. Only you decide who you are; other people already have their opinions on how they see you. That’s all it is anyway, an “opinion,” not the truth, so be you and not what someone or a group says you should be. Whose life is it anyways, theirs or yours?
So I suggest: try once a week sitting by someone at lunch you don’t know very well. It may be fun and you might find someone who relates to you