(From a Lux coffee shop in Phoenix)

It’s like we never quite get this humanity thing right. Every day we are on the verge of world war–or on the cusp of world peace.

The only way for the world to get better is if the older generation taught the younger generation, so we wouldn’t hurt like they have. This ideal depends on one generation actually learning from their mistakes, and another generation’s openness to listening. After thousands of years, we’ve had plenty of chances to try this. Either this ideal doesn’t work, or we didn’t really try.

After meeting tens of thousands of high schoolers, I reluctantly decided that high school is a place where kids go to destroy themselves. Armies of high schoolers march the same path to self destruction, year after year. Each freshman class enters bright and ready, and every senior class leaves numbed and confused. What happens in those four years that destroys the rest of their lives?

Damnit–I am tired of this hell. We’ve lost too many.

“If you only knew how close I am to being really bad.” If you only knew how close you are to becoming a saint. This is what it comes down to: every decision is an opportunity for goodness. Choose goodness.

No! This is the reality: high school is when people choose goodness. Earth-shakers rebuke peer pressure. They each defy the destruction.

Few people can take care of the planet, but we all live in our own world. Seek to get this “self thing” right. If you are not working for peace, then you are causing war.