It's really quite amazing how we manage to kid ourselves and make ourselves and others believe the most impossible things. I thought it was only little children who would do things like call a sandwich a biscuit or something like that, and then everyone would laugh because it was so cute! But is it still cute when the kid grows up and is still calling things by their wrong names?

Somewhere and sometime in our lives, we have been convinced of many incorrect things. We have been persuaded, for example, that it is our right to put our money in interest-bearing banks and to pay interest on money we borrow. Any attempt to change the banking system would most likely be met with shock and horror, even though customers repay two or three times the borrowed amount.

Many of us have also been convinced that the truly beautiful women are those who are Caucasian, blonde, blue-eyed, tall, and skinny (almost anorexic). We are also told that the liberated women are the ones who are ready and willing to do heavy, tiresome, and boring work, to mix freely with the opposite sex, and to wear scanty, immodest clothes in the name of being fashionable and to attract men.

We have been so convinced of such things that if a young woman has a dark complexion, is short and not skinny, she thinks she can never be "beautiful" and therefore, cannot be "successful." Such young women suffer from feelings of low self-esteem, lack confidence, and are not really sure where they fit in.

Such attitudes and mistaken messages are also sent to young men. A young man is expected to prove his "manliness" by being a football fanatic and by being aggressive with those who are considered inferior by his particular group — those who are different and weak. They are expected to be rough with women (in control!), to drink alcohol, to swear like a trooper, to smoke, to be willing to do drugs, and to be willing to step out of the safety zone of generally "decent" behavior. They are also expected to drive too fast, to live dangerously, to be loud and aggressive. What a man!

Society understands these unspoken expectations and often turns a blind eye to young people who drink, experiment with drugs, and live immoral lifestyles. Adults put this kind of behavior down to the fact that a young man is "growing up." They say things like "The best years of your life, eh!" They might wink and smile and say, "Oh, well, boys will be boys!"

Society's perverted way of thinking does not stop there. You can go into bookshops and buy a huge assortment of pornographic material and see an assortment of ways of how women are abused and disrespected. This is usually considered acceptable and "normal" and a sign of the freedom of speech. But there is a catch. The catch is determining the thin gray line between such things being legal or illegal — that difference can be as much as one single day.

In many Western countries, you can be 17 years and 364 days old, and it would be illegal for you to view pornographic material, to enter night clubs, to drink alcohol, and to watch ultra-violent films.

However, when that magical one day has passed and you are 18 years old, all of a sudden everything is allowed. You have your ticket to the "adult" world of decadence, illusion, self-abuse, and immorality — and it's all perfectly legal — unless you go out and act on it in society. Whom are we trying to kid?

Strict laws on identification cards for young people mean that there can be no boozing before 18 years of age, and so the frustrated and disappointed youth get kicked out of bars and nightclubs because they do not look old enough to get in — rats! They feel jealous of the under-18-year-olds who can pass for 18. And then they count the days until their 18th birthday.

When we look at drug abuse, we find that even though drugs are illegal, their abuse has also reached levels of epidemic proportions. Kids as young as 7 and 8 years old can become regular users! The same society that makes drug use illegal is the same one that sets in motion the conditions that turn young people to use drugs. Most often people use drugs because they feel a sense of emptiness, depression, and a void inside, and the drugs give the person a passing sense of happiness, elation, and grandeur. But after only a short time, the illusion wears off and the person is faced with reality again.

Society keeps pumping the heads of young people with images and jargon about what is and is not beautiful, and pushes them to live up to society's expectations of beauty, success, and conformity. Young people find themselves in a whirl, in an attempt to gain wealth to squander on fashionable clothes, the latest mobile phones, and going to "hip" places so they can feed society's money-makers and obey media images and messages.

But this kind of behavior leads to an empty lifestyle. It makes it extremely hard for young people to know their true selves and where they fit into the scheme of things. They can't figure out what their life's goal is, what the purpose of life is, or the nature of the greatness that lies within. How can young people discover these truths when they're busy scrambling in an attempt to make sense of the "adult" world with all its hypocrisy and superficiality?

Society tells us that we have to be 18 to watch dirty movies and to look at filthy magazines that degrade women and womanhood. But at the same time, if people were to walk down the street imitating the behavior they see in movies and magazines, they would be arrested! You can browse through indecent magazines, but if you sexually harass a woman, you'll be arrested.

After 18, you are legally allowed to watch ultra-violent films, but if you shoot anyone or act violent in any way, you'll be arrested! Punished! What's going on? Why do we accept this hypocrisy? If an act is bad, evil, negative, and harmful, then it is not allowed for a person whether he or she is 17, 18, or 75.

But mankind is amazing. Despite all the mess, confusion, and hypocrisy that raise their ugly heads in different ways and at different times throughout history, there are always those who rise above it all and do and say noble things. Today, there are people who reject the world of lies and illusion and struggle to follow the path that leads to self-awareness and self-fulfillment. These people set the stage for a better world where children will have the right to be innocent, where young people will use the best years of their lives achieving their potential and discovering the beauty of life instead of laying lifeless, despondent, and disfigured at the end of a syringe or beside an empty beer bottle with people who are lost and floundering in life, just like them.