“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”

-Edwin Louis Cole

Today, in comparison with just a decade ago, we are beginning to see a drastic downfall in the education that people have of the inner workings of industries and business in the United States of America. I have seen far too many people acting in a very naïve way about the appropriate and even mandatory actions to take in the formation of anything from small business all the way up to large corporations. It seems that people want to jump over legal aspects and important financial decisions hoping that they’ll receive some type of golden ticket into the world and will manage to set themselves up to begin doing what they have a true passion for without the headache of doing things they dislike. When you think about what I just wrote, you’ll notice that this is the description of a prime candidate to be an ordinary employee. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this and in most cases will allow people to obtain a more stable lifestyle, but at the moment I am specifically discussing the art of entrepreneurship. When speaking of entrepreneurship and the development of a currently non-existent business, you are required without exception to take things a step further and establish some form of direction to take. In starting a business you have to do a lot of things you wont necessarily like, there is an awful lot of weight on your shoulders between research, receiving loans, profit/loss predictions and expectations, filing of legal documents, running meetings, conducting interviews, cutting expenditures, finding environments that are conducive to your business, and the list goes on and on. These are things that quite obviously can’t be ignored or put aside just because you don’t want to do them. To become a successful business owner you have to be decisive, you have to ask yourself what will make MY business successful, what will make ME money, and how will I please MY consumers. This doesn’t imply that you need to become overly confident in yourself, that can actually become a weakness, but you definitely need to know what you want. There’s also a necessity to absorb and use criticism in your favor, being that you’re going to find more people that doubt you and your ideas than people who eagerly support them. Generally, a person who supports everything you do is a friend of some sort and can’t be trusted to accurately judge your endeavors or potential success. If you get tied into the bad habit of putting up your hand and ignoring constructive criticism, you’re becoming what’s labeled as an optimism bias. This is considered a very ugly term, and is the number one cause for failed start-ups. However; I do realize that changing this within yourself is not an easy thing to do, with that I’ve never met a single person who likes being criticized, and often enough these people refuse to handle said criticism appropriately. This is a situation where it’s important that you ask yourself if you’re responsible enough to take on a large project, manage money properly, and have enough authority to manage your employees as efficiently as possible. There’s a list of mandatory actions for a business owner to take to ensure success that is longer than anybody would ever want to take the time to read, but there are a few requirements that are incredibly important and those are the ones that people need to focus on to allow the chance for the other pieces to fall in place. It’s a tough world, the process of starting a business is an awful lot of work and can be incredibly expensive, but it’s important to support entrepreneurship in our community. We need to do everything in our power to make sure that people are taking an appropriate course of action to get where they want to be without failing. So, what is the measure of potential success? That is the dedication and knowledge that you either have or are willing to acquire to set yourself up to do well with your business. Less knowledge will put you first in line for failure when you hit the world, less dedication will make it almost impossible for you to move forward.

These are important things to think about.

Even though it is illegal to drink alcohol in the United States until you are 21, and in Canada until you are 19 (18 in Quebec), most teens can get access to alcohol, or will at least be exposed to it or have friends who drink. It is therefore up to you to make a decision whether to drink.

     Deciding to drink can have many harmful consequences. Usually, younger teens (under 16) are neither mentally nor physically developed enough to handle a strong drug like alcohol. Also, the earlier that one begins drinking, the more likely they are to have problem with alcohol later in life.

     Although most teens drink alcohol in order to fit in and look cool, they often end up doing foolish things due to the fact that they are drunk and may end up being embarrassed the nest day or having done or said something that they regret. Also, the next day you will suffer a hangover, which is not fun and includes, upset stomachs, headaches, dizziness and sensitivity to light and sound.

     Drinking may begin to interfere with your social life, sports and school work. Also, your parents will most likely disapprove of your drinking, and this could result in punishment and groundings. As well, it has been seen that teens who drink end up being more sexually active and having more unprotected sex with partners that they do not know as well. This may result in pregnancy and STD’s, which could then end up in death.

     People often say that they drink to escape from their problems, but it is a proven fact that drinking only leads to more problems - especially problems with the law. In fact, research shows that 32% of teens under 18 who are in long-term juvenile detention centers were under the influence of alcohol at the time of their crime and/or arrest.

     Also, teens who drink may get seriously hurt or even die. Over 38% of all drowning deaths are alcohol-related. Use of alcohol greatly increases the chance that a teen will be involved in a car accident, homicide, or suicide. If you do choose to drink, don’t drink and drive or let your friends drink and drive. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), on one of the most popular prom nights in 1999, as many as 62% of the traffic fatalities were alcohol-related.

Long-term alcohol use can have extremely serious health consequences. Liver damage is a widely known consequence of alcohol abuse. Years of drinking can also damage the pancreas, heart, and brain. Heavy drinking can lead to malnutrition (if alcohol is used as a substitute for food) or obesity (if regular or binge eating is combined with the high calorie content of alcoholic beverages). 

— Drinking alcohol is one of the dumbest decisions you could make throughout life. You get absolutely nothing out of it. So if you’re thinking about trying alcohol ever, I’d recommend not to. Why ever it would appear to anybody as a good thing is beyond me, the negative health effects and temporary impairment are the major consequences of this drug that appears to have no positive light to it. Do the right thing and stay away from it, the minor amount of fun that you actually get from it does not make up for turmoil you face from using it. Think about your actions and how they can affect your future. 

It’s not uncommon to hear people discussing the next, upcoming technology and asking “what could be next?”. It’s general curiosity and it makes perfect sense to speculate on the unknown, especially when we have the assured knowledge that something is definitely next. There’s a lot to wonder and that makes it all the more interesting to ponder over. In the past decade, we have seen more technological advances than anybody could have predicted. So, what will we see evolve in the next decade? Nobody can be sure; many of us will find ourselves making guesses on what will replace the current cell phones, computers, televisions, etc. and what industries will be flooding the corporate world and in turn controlling our lives? There definitely is no person that could answer the question “what’s next?”. It’s unpredictable. Good or bad, we can prepare to see most things drastically change in the next ten years. There is always an idea and there is always somebody willing to pursue an idea, yet we’re in an unusual time, not as many people are willing to pump funds in to an idea in this struggling economy. Investments just aren’t the gold rush they once were and that puts our nation at a great loss, it’s the funding of ideas that helps to create the next big thing. While we have no clue what to expect to see arise in this world, we do need something to come up or else consumers start to get bored and displeased. We can’t constantly be looking at the same companies and the same products. Our society has become so dependent on luxuries that it’s almost sickening. We all do the same thing, we look at something new and aren’t happy until we get it. We want the latest technology, the sleekest design, the things that provide competition with our peers. Everybody has to keep up with everybody else to be happy. So, why worry? Why is it necessary that we have everything instantaneously? Why are we so eager to unload all of our earnings on something that probably won’t get any use? Well, that’s just how we are. We need something to replace everything and we get tired of things very quickly. So what would we do if people stopped asking “what’s next?” and people stopped trying to come up with the answer? 

I’ve recently found, from reading articles and listening to students, that the general belief in high school is that experimenting with controlled substances is just another part of being a teenager. I thought that this sounded ridiculous so I’ve decided to look in to the drug/alcohol statistics among teens in the united states; here they are:

• 54% of teenagers experiment with Marijuana before they graduate high school.
• 58% of teenagers agree that obtaining Marijuana is simple.
• 25% of teenagers claim they have seen drug transactions in their school/neighborhoods.
• 80% of teenagers have tried alcohol during high school.
• 70% of teenagers have smoked a cigarette during high school. 
• 30% of high school students have tried stronger drugs (Ecstacy, LSD, Methamphetamine, Crack-cocaine, etc.)
• 23% of teenagers have willingly taken a prescription drug that was not prescribed to them.
• 91% of teenagers who tried alcohol continue drinking it. 
• 70% of people who begin drinking before the age of 18 become functional alcoholics.
• 20% of people who begin drinking before the age of 18 become dysfunctional alcoholics.
• Underaged drinking costs the United States government an average of $53 Billion per year. 
• Approximately 600 tons (1.2M pounds) of marijuana successfully cross the border every year. Netting about $1.5 Billion at todays street value. 

So, I concluded that everything I had heard is completely accurate. That being, is it acceptable for high school students to experiment with drugs/alcohol just because they’re kids? I don’t think so. No matter what your age, you should receive the same punishment for doing drugs and for those under the age of 21, alcohol is still an illegal drug. I’m an advocate for kids being sentenced to jail time for the use or distribution of controlled substances. In the past, court ordered punishments have been relatively weak towards underaged drug use, but why? In truth, If you’re old enough to drink or smoke, you’re old enough to spend a few months in a jail cell. So maybe it’s time to find a more sensical way to enjoy yourself.