Graduations are about transition for both students and families; most everything is in flux. It’s an unsettled season that involves many choices.
Parents, how will your routines differ? What financial concerns may arise, and what emotions and boundaries will be involved?
Students feel overwhelmed by the need to make decisions that affect the rest of their lives. Here’s the bare bones truth. No matter your age, every day you’ll make choices that affect the future.
Always make the choice that leaves you the most options. Seems simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. When choosing, follow the decision through to where you’ll end up. Many times, I’ve felt trapped because I agreed to something on the spur of the moment, with no consideration of collateral damage. Often, my discomfort could have been avoided by just saying, “I need to think about it and let you know.”
Learn to ask yourself questions and pay attention to your gut. Will this choice reflect my values, or am I just going along with the crowd, doing what others expect, or telling myself that just this once won’t matter? A lot of the time we let others decide for us and don’t even realize that’s what we’ve done.
Picking up that drink dulls our ability to see more options. The pack of cigarettes opens the door to health issues, not to mention putting a hole in the finances. Sure, you can always quit later but it’s not going to be easy and meanwhile, a lot of choices will have passed by unnoticed.
You can put the pedal to the metal but when flashing lights appear in the rear view, you’ll find that some options have been eliminated. Your choice of companions has a lot to do with how other choices are made and legal considerations can come into play around this. Again, limited options.
The media choices we make shape our outlook and responses to life. What kind of person do you want to be, and what might need to be removed from your routine in order to achieve that? My mom insisted I’d become like the people I hung out with. I thought she was narrow minded and old fashioned but, thankfully, her insistence on monitoring my teen years allowed me the option to make wiser choices as an adult.
We all have the ability to change directions but the choices get harder the longer we proceed in the same old rut. Many years ago, a gentleman who had entered a treatment center for substance abuse said, “You can’t imagine how many U turns there are between here and my house.” He eventually made it to a place that helped him make better choices.
U turns are always an option, but you can get pretty dizzy going around in circles and there’s always the chance of getting hit by oncoming traffic. Whether you’re graduating or just going about your life, I wish you an open road with gentle curves and not too many blind intersections.
Meet me here next week and meanwhile, do your best. Somebody might like it.