Change has to come from within. My epiphany came quite late, at the end of my first year at university, aged 21.
That was at the end of an academic year spent in the company of an alcoholic, a decade older than me.
We’d had some good times, it’s true, but we had some very bad times too. And so it was that it occurred to me: “This is bad company.”
But that realisation could only come then. In retrospect, this wasn’t the first time I’d kept bad company.
But in earlier times, I was too close to those friends to see any shortcomings at all. Perhaps we were fortunate in being split apart by circumstances.
Parental despair is seeing our kids make the same mistakes we did, or worse, throwing their lives away for the sake of the fleeting sense of belonging.
They can’t see what their parents, teachers, and concerned family friends all see, that these are destructive relationships, wrecking their chances.
Perhaps they will only learn the hard way, as we all did. But in that model, you must live with the consequences.
The if only that hits twenty years on, when you look at where your life choices carried you. This is a crossroads for our children, just as it was for us in our day.
Which road they’ll take very much depends on how much they’re invested in those relationships, versus the allure of a better life ahead.
As I say, change can only come from within, born of an impetus to reform your soul.
Last modified: 21 November 2024
