I'm very aware that I'm about to sound like a boring old person on a soapbox. But, like I said yesterday, this is my post and I can say what I want to!
Last night I woke at about 12:30 to discover a mob of up to 100 young people (looked maybe 17/18 year olds) wandering drunkenly up my street making an awful lot of noise. As I observed them (from the safety of my upstairs window), a police van came down the road and one of the idiots turned and shook his tail feather at them. Unsurprisingly, he was arrested.
The police left to take the guy to the lockup and the group kept wandering its way loudly along the street. I checked on my son and my friend who's staying downstairs then went onto the front verandah to make sure the last of the group went by peacefully.
As I was standing there, a couple of young fellas decided to encourage their friend to knock over my neighbour's letterbox. I was suddenly quite enraged and yelled out at them to stop, which, surprisingly, they did! Then they got their "courage" back and tried again. I was really mad by this stage and ran down the stairs and across the road after the guy. He got away, which is probably a good thing for all of us, and the letterbox was only crooked in the ground rather than completely ruined.
I watched them continue up the street then went back to bed, taking at least 10 minutes to stop shaking. It took me almost an hour to get back to sleep though because I was so angry about the whole thing.
So here comes the soapbox part.
My neighbours were terrified. They're older, fragile people, and there's a family with young kids next door too. How can we, as a society, allow this kind of stuff to happen with no consequence? Sure, a couple of the very drunk ones got arrested, but really, the cops can't do anything. If I had caught up with the guy who'd tried to bust up the letterbox, I probably would have been in more trouble with the law than him.
Stuff like this happens every weekend, and the thing is, we think it's normal and okay! Since when is wasting your brain cells, not getting the rest you need, wandering around destroying public and private property, urinating and puking all over the place okay??? I know I'm going to be in a serious minority on this, but I really think we as a society need to start reconsidering what we encourage our young people to do with their weekends and evenings.
How many of these kids would have spent a better night getting a good sleep so they can perform at their peak in their chosen sports or activities on Saturday morning? What about those who might otherwise use their brains for high levels of study or creative endeavour? Our young people are such an incredible resource of energy and inspiration, but so many of them are wasting their lives because we don't encourage them to be better than this!
Yeah, most of these kids are probably old enough to drink, and I really don't have anything specifically against drinking. But our kids are aiming for this as the peak of fun and entertainment! Come on! There's SO much more to life than this!!! Especially as a young person when you have no major ties or responsibilities! The possibilities are endless! But they require full use of brain cells, great rest and good nutrition.
Come on, let's give our young people something better to aim for! Wouldn't you love to see our younger generation living life to its fullest extent? Wouldn't you love to see them engaged in the community, rather than destroying themselves and their surroundings? Oh, I really, really would!
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