Beat Society - an inspirational post, draft for my English controlled assessment

Society is messed up. We are all so superficial, we worry less about what our family thinks of us and more about what our “friends” think. We will spend our time finding trends to follow and things that we “can’t live without”, taking compromising ‘selfies’ and making sure we constantly look our best, rather than investing our time in worthwhile things like spending time with our family and building lasting relationships. As a generation we tend to believe that the respect of our peers and strangers is more important than the respect of our families and teachers.

Everybody wants to be popular, but the word has lost its true meaning. In reference to a person it means “generally liked and admired”. Think about the 'popular' people in your school or workplace. They aren’t the kind, funny and smart people that you would think might be “generally liked and admired”, they are the beautiful, superficial people who push people down to raise their social status. People don’t like them; they want to be liked by them.

If society is a mountain, those people are at the top. There are people all the way up the mountain trying to reach the summit. Think about where you are on that mountain. Are you trying to get to the top? Or are you comfortable with where you are and you’re just chilling?
Sometimes the kings and queens who reside on the top of the mountain will throw a rope down, this could be a remark like “Isn’t that girl so ugly? She totally needs to lose weight.” Or a question like “How far have you gone with a girl?” some people will jump right on the rope in the hope of being hauled up the mountain a little, even if they have to shove their friends out of the way. This is what is truly sad about society. Most people are so desperate for popularity, even the ones who say they don’t care, that they will drop everything to get there, even their only friends.

Another way of looking at it is that the popular people are in this bubble and everyone else is outside it. Some people don’t even notice the bubble, they don’t see the popular people as being superior; some people notice the bubble but are indifferent, they just go on with their lives; and some people are constantly trying to get into the bubble, much to the annoyance of those within.
What these desperate people don’t see is what hard work being popular is, once you are accepted it's like running on a never ending treadmill trying to catch up, shoving everyone else out of the way and never really truly being yourself. Sounds great, huh?

Sometimes it feels like you are being shunned by the world, but if it feels like that, you are surrounding yourself with the wrong people. Make sure you are surrounding yourself with people as opposed to ideals and high standards. You need to make your own standards; they are the only ones you can live up to while still being yourself.
Do little things to build up the big things: call your friend, play cards with your brother, help your mom make dinner. These are the things that will still matter in ten years’ time, whether you were ‘popular’ in school won’t. When you're on your death bed what will you want, your diploma and your sports car or your family and your loved ones? If you spend too much time worrying about the superficial things in life you’ll lose the important things. Smile. Be positive. Being on the outside is okay, in fact, being on the outside is the best place to be.