Rethinking What Might Have Been

The first ghost that appeared to Odysseus was that of one of his own sailors, Elpenor, who had died when he fell off the roof of Circe’s palace. He spoke regretfully of the drunken state that had caused him to stumble and fall to his doom. Elpenor entreated Odysseus to give him a proper burial lest his spirit torment the king’s days and haunt his steps. Odysseus swore an oath to provide a suitable wake for his fallen comrade.

If we think about Elpenor’s words, we see that his ghost was full of regret over what might have been. When someone dies in their own world, especially a classmate, it is very common for young people to feel great sorrow and regret over the opportunities they missed to interact with the deceased. These thoughts and emotions can swirl around inside a student and preoccupy their waking hours. The goblins with which we as adult leaders must do battle are known as Regret and Depression.

One of the best ways to help a student in this situation is to give him the opportunity to share his thoughts and feelings, either in a group of his similarly grieving peers or one-on-one with an adult leader. If not given the chance to be freely expressed, these emotions and thoughts can reach a boiling point and cause some serious problems in a young person’s life. Sharing in this manner allows a student the chance to give substance to his feelings and to put words to otherwise amorphous laments and sorrows. Steps should be taken to ascertain who the close friends of the deceased were so that the group can freely share personal memories and stories. These are some ways in which we can help students to slay the monster Regret.

Depression can be defeated through encouraging a grieving student to make forward progress. Suggest new activities in which the young person can become involved. Motivate the student’s friends to come around her during this time. Service projects can be an excellent way to move the student who is sinking into the mire of depression to look beyond her own struggles and toward meeting the needs of others.

What in your life do you regret doing? What do you regret not doing? What changes can you make right now so that you can live your life without regrets?

Rethinking L.A.

There are some great things going on in L.A.! If you've never heard of O2MAX Fitness Center, you should really visit their site.

O2 MAX, the club for teens opening this Fall will offer teens a positive place to workout, meet a friend, read a magazine, bring a laptop, I.M., study, download music, get a tutor, or just hang out. In other words, O2 MAX will be a place teens can call their 'home away from home' - only now they can associate the routine habits of their daily lives with a healthy and fit lifestyle. - O2 MAX

Staying healthy and physically fit is a critical part of being fully alive!

Rethinking the Lotus

Does the lotus fruit exist in our society today? Absolutely! What sorts of things act as an anesthetic for the wounds of life? Let’s take a look at an example.

Video Games: The Story of Trent

By the time Trent had reached middle school, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would have a difficult row to hoe. He was fairly overweight, and to say that he had a poor complexion would have been an understatement. If you were to make an honest assessment of the situation, you would see that Trent had only one or two friends (if you could call them that) in the whole school. Each day, he awoke with a sickening feeling in his gut, knowing the teasing and tormenting that awaited him upon his arrival to school. “Fat ass!” “Pizza face!” “Wide load!” He tried to ignore the comments as his parents had suggested, but deep down, each unkind word cut deep into his heart. His parents were very loving and did the best they could, but the fiery words of his peers did their damage with alarming precision. The enemy was driving a spear deeper and deeper into Trent’s soul.

Trent began to come up with reasons why he just couldn’t go to school in the morning. Sometimes he felt a severe headache coming on, while other times he forced himself to vomit so that his parents wouldn’t make him get on the bus. He started spending more and more time on the Internet, chatting with others online. Some of these new online “friends” introduced Trent to a multiplayer video game in which they were participants.

This newfound activity was a fantasy adventure game that involved some pretty graphic violence. Trent found himself wanting to spend more and more time playing the game, rather than doing other things in the “real world.” His parents soon noticed that he was spending no fewer than five hours every day playing this game and was interacting with his family less and less. At dinnertime, his mother, father, and older sister would take turns trying to start discussions with Trent about things at school or his life in general, but he didn’t have much to say, for his life was beginning to revolve around the game and the fantasy characters that inhabited this virtual world.

Why did a video game become the lotus fruit to this lonely and hurting middle school student? What was the draw—the narcotic effect, if you will? Well, it offered Trent an escape from the reality that was so painful each day. In the real world, he was overweight, had a bad acne problem, and was teased constantly. However, in the virtual world of the game, he was a gun-toting mercenary named Zax, feared and respected by all races throughout the galaxy.

What did the video game offer that reality did not? During the hours that he played the game, Trent could forget about the painful reality he faced day in and day out. The game was, in essence, an opiate. It offered the feeling of power and courage without really requiring anything of him. He was willing to take incredible risks as Zax, such as single-handedly infiltrating the orbiting battle station of an alien invasion force. In real life, meanwhile, Trent rarely took risks and avoided situations where he was sure to be harassed, such as school dances, rest rooms, and stairwells. The game also offered him the illusion of something that is deep in the heart of every boy: adventure and the chance to play the hero. A recent study publicized by BBC News found that nearly a third of all students were playing video games daily, and that close to 10 percent played for at least thirty hours each week! In this example, Trent found himself acting more and more like the entranced lotus-eaters of Homeric epic.

Rethinking Belonging II

There is nothing inherently wrong with peer groups or cliques. They are common to every middle and high school, typically based on friendships and mutual interests. However, they do have the potential to twist and mold an adolescent into their own image. The coming-of-age movie The Breakfast Club (1985) illustrates this state of affairs in an entertaining yet poignant way. The entire movie takes place in a Saturday detention hall in a suburban Chicago high school. Represented is one member of each social group in the school.

As each student strolls into the detention hall, the air is thick with posturing and posing. The camera pans over the five students, and you can see that each bears the emblems of their social group—buttons, sport shirts, jeans jackets, eye makeup, pocket protectors. Slowly, they are pushed by one another out of their comfort zones and forced to be real about who they really are on the inside. If you can look past the strong language, this film provides a great study on the concept of the formation of identity. Think about this for a moment. You were probably a member of at least one clique during your school years. What often acts as the glue or the bond that keeps these peer groups together? It is fear, plain and simple—the fear of being left out, of being different, of being nobody.