Not too long ago, my brother turned 18. Since then he has begun making some choices for his life, which is an action I completely support. What I do not support so much is the decisions he is making.
He did not graduate from high school, to top it off. Rather, he is finishing through a correspondence course and summer school. He got his mom to pay for an extension on the correspondence class so that he can have another three months putting off completing it. Summer school on the high school level isn't like it is on the college level. In college the course does not lose any material. Rather, you work at a grueling pace for a super intense five weeks to get a semester ahead or a second chance at passing. In high school, however, you take a class that is dumbed down so that everyone who failed it the first time has a second chance at an A. He has learned this and so this is what he does.
About a month ago he finally got his driver's license. Because he has never had a job, he let his mom buy the car in addition to pay for the insurance. Now he complains about having to pay for fuel...There's nothing like a free ride...
And he's "dating" a girl whom he would evidently be quite upset if she went out with someone else but doesn't have enough courage to talk to her and tell her that. She's apparently just supposed to know.
Two weeks ago he received a misdemeanor for shooting an air assault rifle from a moving vehicle at his friend in another moving vehicle within city limits. He was cited for disorderly conduct.
He has since decided that he is going to fight the ticket. He claims that he is guaranteed by the Constitution to the right to a speedy trial, so he figures that if he takes his enlistment papers in to them, they will rush him right through. He thinks that since he is supposed to leave for the Navy on Sept. 1, they will expedite his process and get him through court proceedings immediately. He plans to hire the same lawyer as his friend ($150/hr to be paid for how...?) to fight the ticket because technically he should have been charged for illegal use of fire arms rather than disorderly conduct, even though his conduct was, by my definition at least, quite disorderly. He also doesn't understand that he cannot simply enter the next available school as he is currently planning (because they fill seats in school a year in advance).
He honestly thinks that everyone is going to bend over backwards making exceptions for him so that his life continues on this easy, gilded path.
I hope honestly that one day soon he wakes up and realizes that he has royally messed up his own life and that it is due to his own ignorance and lack of personal responsibility.
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