Do you suppose a lot of kids say "You know, when I grow up I want to be a crackhead with a felony rap and jail time." Or "I think I'll have an unhappy marriage and get divorced." Or "I think I'll get in over my head with credit card debt and be emotionally trashed by the stress."

Of course not. Duh. But face it- it happens to hordes of people anyway.

Why isn't it going to happen to you? Are you just lucky? Special? Different from all those other people? Nope, nope and nope, respectively. You are just like they are.

Here's the takeaway: all kinds of bad stuff are going to happen to you if you just figure you'll be fine. The only way to avoid those things is to, well, avoid them. You need a conscious, purposeful plan, how those things will be prevented from happening to you. The only way not to go with the flow is to go against it. That takes will power, gray matter, and a plan. Look around America today, and you'll see that going with the flow is a severely bad thing.

By plan, I mean PLAN. You should be able to say, out loud, what you are going to do to make sure your marriage never fails. You should be able to say, out loud, what you'll do to prevent ending up with a debt problem. You should be able to say, out loud, what you are going to do to keep any and every circumstance from causing to you abuse substances and/or get addicted. You should be able to say, out loud, how you will act differently.

Or maybe you're just so lucky and special that bad things will only happen to other people. Most kids are. Until later.