Just for Youth...Is Life Only About FUN! FUN! FUN?

What's wrong with just doing whatever you want? Find out how to get your kicks in life-but not those that kick you in the teeth!
by Les McCullough

Sound counsel can be packed into only a few words. When I was in my teens, I heard a small-town police officer say something that has stayed with me. Several of my friends and I were in possession of some beer in a car when the officer pulled us over. He didn't arrest or ticket us. He made us pour the beer on the ground. "What you are today," he told us, "is what you will be 20 years from now."

That officer's saying stuck with me because I didn't want at age 36 to be as reckless and irresponsible as I was at age 16. The 13 words uttered by that policeman made an impact on me. Their effect wasn't immediate, but they tempered my actions from then on.
I began to think seriously about what I wanted to do and realized I wanted to achieve more than my parents had. I loved my father and mother, and they were fine people, but they were limited by their background and education. I wanted a career that I enjoyed, not one that just earned me a living. My father had a job, but my mother had to work to help pay their way. That wasn't how I wanted to live.
Some kids act responsibly

Do young people want only to have fun and bear no responsibility? Actually, what may be surprising to some is that many of them show a surprising capacity for responsible decision-making.

But they need guidance and training in making right decisions. Parents should start when their children are young to teach and direct them to see all sides of a question, then let them know that as they mature some decisions will fall to them, although others will still require input from adults.

How many parents live in the house they want in the city they want or even in the country they want? How many
have the job they want? How many take the vacation they want when they want?

If you are a young person, go to your parents and seriously ask them those questions. You may be surprised at the answers.

For many, the necessities of life dictate location and career. Often it is too late in life to make discretionary changes in job or residence. Less-than-ideal decisions early in life will affect their lives forever.

But, with the passing of time, people tend to grow wiser. A parent who says no to his child may be attempting, perhaps unwisely, to spare the child from making mistakes that would adversely affect his life. It is easier just to say no than to say no and then explain the reasons for denying permission.

If you are a parent, perhaps you should ask questions of your children and keep an open mind about the answers. The teenage years are a difficult time, when life is exciting and so much looks so desirable. Your children can't help wanting to be a part of it. Their friends appear to be having so much fun.

Wait a minute. Is that true? What other young people are they looking to as examples of kids having fun? Let's take a look, not just at a young person's acquaintances, but at young people as a whole.

What have been the fruits of the culture of the 20th century on a worldwide scale? Generally speaking, are most young people having fun? In fact, are any of them having any fun at all?
Struggling just to live

Look at Afghanistan, the Middle East, Central America, Ethiopia, Iran, China, the inner cities of nations around the world. People in these places strive for their version of happiness. But you can hardly call their striving fun.

Street urchins struggle just to live. They don't want to die, but they do. They die by the thousands for what they want in life, or they die for no good reason at all.
Children in some countries are slaughtered because they were born into the wrong ethnic background. Others simply get in somebody else's way. Some are abused just because they were unlucky enough to exist. Others struggle to find food to survive on. These youngsters are not having much fun.

If we reflect honestly, most of us reading this have much more than the basic necessities of life. We expect a better life than most of the world can ever live.
What we want, young and old alike, are the good times we see portrayed on television or in the movies or that we read about in magazines-parties, music, dancing, the kicks in life.

Unfortunately, and we don't like to think about this, the kicks in life too often turn around and kick us in the teeth. They exact a penalty that may cripple us in some way for the rest of our lives. Parents sense that this can happen; that's another reason they frequently say no.
Each year hundreds of thousands of unmarried women and girls give birth to unwanted babies.

They shed millions of tears just because they and the babies' fathers wanted to have a little fun.
The fun was short-lived, but the pain endures. More than one fourth of American families are now headed by a single female parent. Most of those families live in poverty.
Living in poverty while raising an illegitimate child is not much fun. If you had planned your life, that wouldn't be what you wanted for your children.

now think whether would it be happiness foever,or pleasure for the moment?