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Health & Fitness

To Our Region's Young Adults

An Open Letter to Our Teens & Tweens

Dear Teens & Tweens:

While I can't be sure, I'm willing to bet that, if you are reading this, it is because some adult among your Facebook friends or Google+ groups suggested it.  As a writer still trying to define his audience, I'll take readers any way in which they come to me.  So this is to you, especially if you are getting ready to finish your high school career.

Becoming an adult is both exhilarating and terrifying, often at the same time.  For some it can best be described as the ride of your life, while for others it can spark intense feelings of anxiety and a sense of loss.  Nothing exemplifies this more clearly than what happens to many freshman college students.  The exhilaration comes at that instant when you realize that no one is going to urge you to go to bed, or get your homework done or actually do your laundry.  Your first inclination may be to engage in celebratory partying (whatever your particular poison might be).  Nobody--repeat, nobody will be surprised or impressed, for that matter, if you do that.

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Yet within that single example of the rush of adult prerogative lies the very seeds of adult distress.  The morning after your merriment subsides, there comes the unavoidable and involuntary moment of full force accountability summed up in one short phrase: "You slept in".  Simply glancing at the alarm clock can solicit the sudden realization that your carefully constructed high school system of fail-safe points (usually Mom and/or Dad) can no longer offer you coverage while you're away at school.  In short, you're on your own.

Congratulations!  You've had your preliminary indoctrination into true accountability.  Here's the bottom line: No one at school cares if you sleep through your first and second classes, let alone whether you study for tests or complete assignments.  With the freedom to make your own choices comes the obligation to own the outcomes of those decisions--good or bad. 

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Kinda' stinks, doesn't it. Welcome to adulthood; we're glad you're here.  Buckle up, it gets pretty bumpy from here...

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