Making Choices
Yes You Can Make Healthy Choices! There are many choices that teenagers have to make in the face of challenges that are thrown at them, choices regarding drugs, alcohol, friendships, and much more. One of the most important choices a teenager will make is his/her decision regarding sexual activity. Making healthy choices allows teenagers to walk freely into a healthy and productive future, and assists in making dreams and visions become a reality.
Choices made as a teenager can alter and re-direct your future. If you go to a lake on a calm summer day, the water will be still with a surface that looks like glass. Throwing a rock in the middle of the lake will disrupt the whole surface by sending ripples throughout the lake. In the same way, decisions regarding sexual activity can disrupt and send ripples through your future. A teenage pregnancy may disrupt your decision or ability to attend college. A painful breakup with a sexual partner may disrupt your ability to love in the future. Acquiring an STD may disrupt your ability to be honest with friends, family, or future relationships.
Making healthy choices begins with an understanding of who you are. True understanding of your value and worth will assist in making the healthiest decisions for your future. Some good decisions are tainted by outside influence such as peer pressure. Peer pressure can be positive. It can encourage us to meet our goals, achieve greatness, and be the best we can be. However, peer pressure can also be negative, when it offers false standards as the measurement of success. Negative peer pressure often dares us to take risks that damage our chances of future success. It takes real courage to be true to yourself, choose not to conform, or chase dreams that others see as unrealistic.