The thick feeling of anxiety, stirred together with overwhelming confusion, and finally topped off with a sprinkle of fear all rush to one's consciousness to test whether or not one is able to withstand the spice of life experienced in adolescence. "The Coming of Age Experience" is a large melting pot of emotions. Every individual carries "a pot" in which there are many different and even new emotions involved that come to life when each person reaches a tender age where various changes occur. These ingredients can be physical, spiritual, as well as cognitive, affecting some more than others, yet everyone undergoes certain transformations at some point in their lives. This age is a time where the question of identity often arises among adolescence, and sometimes people are mistaken in what they conclude of themselves; ultimately, the short period of time is valuable in an adolescent life because of the lasting effect it has on a person. "The Coming of Age Experience" is a very significant period in life because people have to continue to find themselves and explore who they are by experiencing rough circumstances in life, while being subjected to an awakening of a bigger picture of life outside their own small world.
Often times in adolescence, an individual will look for the right crowd of people to fit in with which can bring about the search for one's self to a temporary pause. Internally, people are trying to figure out what kind of group they want to be affiliated with and also if that group will accept them. In my first two years of high school, I often tried to please people by taking on their personalities for fear that they would not accept my own; thus I never had a group of people I consistently settled with because I could only please that certain group of people so much. Finding out who I really was at that time was extremely hard because I had to deal with what people thought about me, as well as satisfying myself with who I was.
