Start Making the Right Choices Now

Starting high school or transferring to a new school can leave you wondering where you fit in. Even after three years, sometimes seniors don't really know where they belong. School may not be the most fun for you, but you will figure a few things out about yourself … usually through really crappy lessons that you learn the hard way.

But it doesn't have to happen that way. Take it from us, there's an easier way to get through the high school years. In fact, it's the simplest advice we can give.

Think first.

So many problems you might have in high school can be avoided if you think things through first. Starting at a new school, or just finding yourself in a new set of friends can leave you without a lot of confidence in how to act, who to listen to or even when to say "no." We're not even talking about drugs or alcohol … we're talking about something that comes before those things: stupidity.

Everyone finds themselves at the mercy of their friends at times, especially when those friends aren't really friends to begin with. Say your group of friends likes to gang up on smaller kids … you might go along with it because you don’t want to stand out, or worse, get picked on yourself. But that doesn't make what you're doing right, and we all know that bullying smaller kids comes back to bite you in the butt when they start their own Microsoft-type company rich and you're looking for a job. So think first, and remove yourself from the situation before you're in so far that you're forced with the choice to put up … or get beat up.

The wrong crowd can lead you down a lot of paths you don't want to go in high school. So many people are trying to figure out their own place and how to act that they make a lot of stupid choices, and drag their friends along with them. Usually, that ends up innocently, or with detention, but just watch the news to hear how things can end up in a very bad place.

You don't have to have confidence in yourself yet … that will come on its own. But you do have to have confidence in your decisions, and that can be easy: Listen to your gut. You know what right and wrong is, and just because someone else is pushing you into doing something stupid doesn't make it right … it just makes you a victim of peer pressure. And after all those stupid videos about peer pressure, do you REALLY want to be that guy or girl?

Think things through. Your friends will make mistakes, but instead of going along so you don't stick out, help them to NOT make those mistakes, or to fix them when they do. That's the sort of thing that the right crowd will appreciate, even if they're annoyed at first. And hopefully they'll help you out in return when you do stupid stuff, like ask out the homecoming king or queen with a huge stain on your pants. Cause that's just what friends are for.