We did it! We Graduated! But now what?
First of all please allow us to extend our congratulations to the thousands and thousands of high school seniors that graduated from high schools across the nation. That achievement is one that you will hopefully look back on as a positive milestone in your life forever, and it is something to be proud of.
Many of you will proceed onto college and further your education. Many of you will be anxious to get into the work world and take a job paying pretty good money so you can get out on your own. Some of you will get married at an early age. Some of you won’t for quite some time and concentrate on career over families. Once you turn 18 and once you get out on your own, life becomes a very serious game with the serious rules.
Work to win, but don’t make winning everything. Always give it your best and no one can ever fault you. Don’t give up if you lose a few rounds. Learn from the mistakes which may have cost you the game and formulate a different game plan to better achieve your goal.
Life has some very strict rules. Rules that can be either lenient or deadly in consequences. Leave your laptop computer on the front seat of your unlocked car with the keys in the ignition and say good-bye to it all. Not a deadly mistake but a costly one. Go the bar with your friends and have several drinks and get behind the wheel of your car while you know you are buzzed and shouldn’t be driving?
That can have deadly consequences and we all know it. You knew it when you got into your car but you went ahead and did it anyway. You know the rules. Don’t break them and you won’t have to suffer those tragic consequences!
The one person who is in complete charge of your life, and who decides what they will and will not do is YOU! No one else. There are several hundred “tips” listed in “Coptalk” to help you prepare for the game of life. We hope you put the odds in your favor and read about the mistakes that others have made in the past. Mistakes that you can prevent in your life.
Now is not the time in your life that you’ll look forward to the future with concern about what will and can happen. But I guarantee you when you get older, you WILL be looking back and examining what you have done in life both right and wrong. Make the right moves in life now, at an early age, and you’ll be sitting back with a big smile on your face because you have the world by the tail. Make the wrong moves and refuse to learn from them and you’ll have nothing but regret. Only one person can decide how they will reflect back on life, and that is you. Here’s some simple advice for life. “Do it right” the first time.
You know what makes your family proud or ashamed. If that doesn’t matter to you that says a lot about you. If you do strive to make your family proud, that also says a lot about you. The way you dress. The way you talk. The amount of respect you show or don’t show to others. The way you drive a car on the road. The importance you place on work or school. The way you respect the rules of the house that your parents have set. The bottom line is this.
Everything that you do in life, and I do mean everything, reflects who you are as a person. That reflection will have important consequences in who will hire you as an employee, who will date you, who will marry you, who will want to be your friends, who will want to go out of their way for you, who will support you when you are down, who will help you get back up again, and who will share the happy times of your life with you.
You will constantly evaluate people that come into your life.
Good boss, Bad boss, Could be better but I need the job boss…
Good girl, Bad girl, Fine bad girl, so-so nice girl, Super girl with no attitude, Fine good girl, Bad girl with attitude.
Good guy, Bad guy, Fine bad guy, so-so nice guy, Super guy with no attitude, Fine good guy, Bad guy with attitude,
Good friend, Bad friend, Back stabber, Leech, User, No morals, No ethics, Supportive, Give you the shirt off the back friend, Loyal friend, Take advantage friend, Always be there to the end friend.
The list goes on and on.
As you go through life evaluating, don’t forget to evaluate the most important person in your world. Go stand in front of the mirror and evaluate the reflection you see while standing in front of yourself.
How do others evaluate you?
Your friends? People who don’t know you that you just met? People you pass on the street? Perspective employers? The cop on the corner? Your parents and family? Is the reflection you see within yourself the one that you want to reflect to others?
Are you responsible, honest, and caring? Or are you selfish, disloyal, and full of hatred and attitude? Do you work for what you want or do you expect it to be handed to you on a golden platter? Do you say what you mean and mean what you say? Or are you someone that is never trusted by those around you?
Before I bore you to tears I’m going to leave you with some wise words. Words that were given to me by my superior officer during some rare but rough times in my career.
When that reflection becomes something you’re not proud of, or when life looks likes it’s basically dumping on you, ask yourself 3 things.
• How did I get to where I’m at today? (In English, what did I do to screw up)
• How can I get back to where I want to be? (What changes must I make to fix the problem?
• How much of the problem is my fault? (Shedding blame is not going to solve the problem but if the problem is not your fault, you have the right to stand up for what’s right. Remember, we all are responsible for our own reflections in life and part of looking at an honest reflection is taking responsibility for our own mistakes. Don’t shed blame if blame is due upon yourself!) Deal with it and fix it!
This superior officer that I honestly look up to, also gave me some valuable advice that I have passed onto hundreds and hundreds of teens on the street that have had contacts with the police for one reason or another.
• “The appearance of wrong doing can often be just as damaging as wrong doing itself.”
The moral of that story? You know what’s right and wrong. Don’t put yourself in a position of delivering a poor reflection to yourself or anyone else.
Keep yourself in check. Lose the attitude. There is no place for attitude in that mirror you look into. Treat ALL people with the respect that you want in return.
Treat other people’s property, the way you want your own property treated.
Dress to impress. Talk to impress. Work to impress. Drive to impress. Live to impress, and when you look into that mirror???
I’m thinkin you’ll be impressed!
Once again, congratulations on your graduation from high school. I sincerely wish you a life full of peace, prosperity, fun, love, and happiness. Isn’t that what life is all about in the first place? You can make it happen. Keep looking in that mirror and you will!
Sincerely,
Jim Lambert
and the staff at NetCops PSI
Parents. Tune in for the next story of the week in mid June. We’ll tell you all you need to know about teenage drinking parties and how you can help stop them.
Teens. We’ll also be letting you know about many of the “zero tolerance” laws regarding underage drinking that can severely effect that driver’s license you just got not too long ago, not to mention escalated insurance rates and civil liability.
Until then, STAY SAFE
