فصل 18

Whitney Noziska’s mission statement

Care

About the world

About life

About people

About myself

Love

Myself

My family

My world

Knowledge

Learning

Life

Fight

For my beliefs

For my passions

To accomplish

To do good

To be true to myself

Against apathy

Rock

The boat. Don’t let the boat rock me

Be a rock

Be remembered

This one was written by Katie Hall. It is short, but to her it means everything: My mission statement

Nothing less.

• THREE WATCH-OUTS

As you strive to begin with the end in mind and develop a personal mission statement, watch out for dangerous roadblocks!

Watch-Out 1: Negative Labels. Have you ever felt labeled by others in a negative way? By your family, teachers, or friends?

“You guys from the east side are all the same. Always gettin’ into trouble.” “You’re the laziest kid I know. Why don’t you get off your butt and do something for a change?” “There goes Suzy. I hear she’s a total sleaze.”

I’m sure your school has its own labels. In my school we had the Cowboys, the Brains, the Airheads, the Pretty Boys, the Party-ers, the Preps, the Babes, the Burn-outs, the Jocks, the D-Wingers, and many other groups. I was labeled in the Jock category. The term “Jock” meant that you played sports, were stuck on yourself, and had a brain the size of a peanut.

Labels are an ugly form of prejudice. Break down the word prejudice and what do you get? Ta da! Pre-judge. Isn’t that interesting? When you label someone you are pre-judging them; that means making conclusions about someone without knowing them. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand it when I am unfairly judged by someone who doesn’t know a thing about me.

You and I are much too complex to be neatly shelved into a category like clothing in a department store, as if there were only a handful of different types of people in the world instead of millions of unique individuals.

If you’ve been falsely labeled, you can live with it. The real danger comes when you start to believe the labels yourself, because labels are just like paradigms. What you see is what you get. For instance, if you’ve been labeled as being lazy, and you begin to believe it yourself, it will become a self-fulfilling belief. You’ll act out the label. Just remember, you are not your labels.

Watch-Out 2: “It’s All Over” Syndrome. Another thing to watch out for is when you’ve made a mistake or three and feel so bad about what you’ve done that you say to yourself, “It’s all over. I’ve blown it. Who cares what happens now?” At this point you’ll often begin to self-destruct and let it all hang out.

Let me just say this. It’s never over. It seems that many teens go through a time where they lose it and experiment and do a whole bunch of things they aren’t proud of … almost as if they are testing the boundaries of life. If you have made mistakes, you’re normal. Every teenager has. Every adult has. Just get your head screwed on straight as quickly as you can and you’ll be okay.

Watch-Out 3: Wrong Wall Have you ever worked really hard to get something you wanted only to find that when you got it you felt empty inside? So often, in our quest to be more popular and to be part of the “in-group,” we lose sight of things that are far more important, like self-respect, true friendships, and peace of mind. We are often so busy climbing the ladder of success that we never take time to see if our ladder is leaning against the right wall. Having no end in mind is a problem. But having an end in mind that leads us in the wrong direction can be an even bigger problem.

I once played football with a guy who was an incredible player. He had everything going for him, including being the team captain and having the ultimate buffed body. Each game he would excite fans with heroic efforts and spectacular athletic feats. Fans praised his name, young boys worshipped him, and women adored him. He had it all.

Or so it appeared.

You see, even though he was shining on the field, he wasn’t doing right off the field. And he knew it. And so did I, because I had grown up with him. As his fame increased, I watched him turn away from his principles and lose his direction. He gained the high fives of the crowd but compromised something else far more meaningful, his character. It doesn’t really matter how fast you’re going or how good you’re lookin’ if you’re headed in the wrong direction.

How can you tell if your ladder is leaning against the right wall? Stop, take a moment right now and ask yourself: “Is the life I’m living leading me in the right direction?” Be brutally honest as you pause and listen to your conscience, that inner voice. What is it telling you?

Our lives don’t always require 180-degree shifts in direction. More often, we need only small shifts. But small changes can make huge destination differences. Imagine this: If you wanted to fly from New York to Tel Aviv in Israel but made a one degree change north, you would end up in Moscow instead of Tel Aviv.