I was listening to him complain about his brother. His brother is failing all classes, running away from home, hanging out with the only peer groups that will accept him (kids who do drugs and kick it in the gang), and is in therapy. And I'm thinking, "Maybe your brother is trying to tell you something."
Then I hear about his personal high school drama and I'm thinking, "Wow, you are naive." I was that kind of high schooler. Aloof and unaware of the world despite outside trials. And that's good. Doing stupid things has the biproducts of regret, and hurt, and trouble.
But I have to say that there is no school master like the school of hard knocks and in a way it's the best education money can't buy.
I learn new things everyday at work. I'm not talking just growing experiences. I mean, I am learning what I never learned in high school. These kids have done it all. And they've suffered consequences. And, oddly, they are better for it. Treatment forces emotional maturity and guides and intense understanding of self. You are forced to question your thought processes, your actions, your emotions, and then forced to do something new. The "good" teenager never learns that.
So, like how the bone heals stronger after a break, I feel that kids who heal after a really stupid adolesence came out ahead of their peers.
2 comments:
I don't know. I think the "good" teenager can learn those lessons while still maintaining her innocence.
I know that when I was a teenager, I was totally faced with (for lack of a better word) temptations. And I knew what my parents would want me to do, but I was old enough that that really wasn't a strong enough motivation to really govern my decisions anymore, so I did have to think about who I was and who I wanted to be and what was important to me. And I made the right decisions back then, which I'm really grateful for now.
Granted, I left home when I was 16 with my parents' blessing, so maybe that gave me a lot of those learning, growing experiences that come with having distance from your parents, without me needing to rebel outright.
I guess it's possible that, since I haven't gone through rehab, I'm still really naive without knowing it. I mean, can a naive person really know how naive they are?
There is a C.S. Lewis quote that goes something like so: Those who stand against the current know it's strength more than those who go with it.... which is true. However, I think that those who fall and then try and stand up and walk back UP stream are the ones who truly understand the strength of a river; those are the people that truly amaze me.
xox
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