@monsterstomp said:
@leo-343: Nothing wrong with that. I was a teenager and was categorised, and I agreed. I thought we were stupid in general, we all have had a stupid moment and its normal. You can't play on the safety line and learn from the lack of mistakes made. Gotta make mistakes.
I like this post; depending on the context of your circumstances, as a person, you have to take risks, make mistakes, and gain experience from your mistakes. Although I took fewer risks as a teenager and young adult, I learned from the few mistakes I made, while I was in those age groups. One mistake was getting a credit card around about when I was 19 or 20. Please young folks, do not get a credit card before you have graduated from college and have landed your first job; it ruins a lot of opportunities, including getting into your first home with a mortgage.
Although I was not irresponsible with my credit cards, I used them when I was about to graduate from college with a 4 year degree; I had an internship lined up and a work study program lined up; things went a little different than I expected; when I was out of school, I had a $49 credit card bill; I found out that finding my first employment was not as easy as I thought; thinking about your first job and planning for it was not popular and cool when I was in school; so, I half did seeking employment; I chose internships instead of co-ops, for example; it was cool to get the 4 year degree on time; so, when I was out of school, I did not have a company waiting for me (although I could have, were it not for another regret in my life) and I did not have sufficient experience to land my first job (e.g. this is that catch-22 that most young people will face, when graduating from college). So, I struggled to land my first job for a whole year, where housing arrangements did not go as planned; through a lot of prayers and being humbled, as a young man, I finally landed my first job, after about a year of searching, perhaps extended by my unstable housing situation, also, meaning a phone where I could be reached.
After I'd landed my first job, that $49 credit card bill had ballooned up to about $2700; this happened with about 2 other credit cards; I also had student loans. But, I learned a hard lesson that could only be gained through experience.
I find that there are many lessons in life that are just as unavoidable, no matter what precautions you take and despite what advise you receive. Under other circumstances, I know other people who might have done something like committing suicide, had they faced the humbling experience I faced, soon after leaving college. Over the past several years, I've had to let many opportunities pass to bring myself out of my current financial struggles, because of my credit score; I missed out on getting legal help, which might have greatly shortened my current struggles, because of my credit score; my current struggles are much more enhanced compared to the humbling experience that I faced right after leaving school; most other men would be broken now and might have committed suicide (e.g. I'm factoring in the huge fall from prestige that I experienced). But, I'm able to deal with it a lot better, because of mistakes I made as a teenager and young adult which molded me into better being able to deal with the mistakes. Because of those mistakes, I'm able to better avoid other potential mistakes and falling into a pitfall that most adults could not escape, leading to their suicides.
Through a lot of perseverance and being better able to face and avoid mistakes, I'm in a slightly better place, financially, right now, but I still have a mountain to climb to regain the prestige that I once enjoyed. The older you get, the more mistakes you face and those mistakes are much harder on your judgement call, than when you're a teenager and young adult, although the mistakes you face as a teenager and young adult can ultimately have a much more profound impact on your life (e.g. you're only young once, so you can only choose an educational and career path only so many times, unless, of course, you make a mistake as a teenager or young adult that eliminates even these options; when you get older, these crossroads are much more frequent, while the clock winds down on you). Without those mistakes, you'll become a very fragile individual, unless your parents are well off or wealthy; the trick is to minimize placing yourself in the predicaments to make those mistakes as much as possible.
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