How to Mess Up Your Life 1

Not that there will be a 2...

I saw "17 Again" last night. Cute movie. Interesting genre. I have a 16 and 17 year old step daughter.

I was thinking about the concept of messing up your life. I wonder sometimes if the norm in America is pretty much for people to mess up their lives. I think children from families who are truly invested in the church have a better shot at not doing it, although it seems decreasingly so. Growing up upper middle class can really give an advantage although, again, decreasingly so it would seem to me.

For the first, oh, say 14 years of your life, you are pretty much a slave to the messing up of your parents. It's a given you just have to deal with. And let me just say I'm pretty depressed with how I perceive most of the parents in Marion to be doing, and even more depressed to think this is probably typical U.S.A. Marion is a city of quiet desperation, as are they all (although sometimes I wonder if most know their own desperation).

From 14-20 you can mess up your own life. You can get pregnant or get someone pregnant. You can drop out of high school. You can throw away going to college or getting into some sort of a job track. Of course God can redeem any less than ideal. And some are just delaying getting into a life track. Some have the luxury to do it.

But I don't think you can really mess your life up drastically until about 22 or so. That's when a person might marry foolishly or set out on the wrong course or get into trouble with the law when it counts.

I probably won't post more. I was just thinking as I drove around Marion today...