Who's to blame?
So I was travelling home on the train today and I happened to overhear a bunch of private school boys in their blazers, ties and vests animatedly discussing something. And I couldn't help but be drawn into the conversation. Eventually I worked out that they had been caught smoking by one of their teachers before rugby practice. Having worked with homeless kids for the last to years I have become a bit desensitised to cigarette smoking - it's just something that they do - and so dont' see it as the extremely rebellious thing that I thought it was in school. But then they kept on talking and I realised that they weren't just talking about smoking cigarettes. Yep, they'd been caught smoking pot, and in their school uniform too. So I knew that these guys were probably gonna be in trouble (you were expelled for that at my school). And they knew it too. And so they were having all sorts of conversations like, "I'll tell them I was just lighting it for Luke, cos that's all I was doing," and "If they ring home I'll just pick up everytime and tell them that they have the wrong number," or, "I'll pretend I'm dad, people think I sound like my dad." Then they got into the we should'ves. "We should have just run when they called out to us," and, "We should have grabbed the chair and knocked him out with it." As the got off the train still talking about it I realised something. There was one thing they didn't say: "We shouldn't have smoked it in the first place." Hmmm. I actually don't think they're that unique in that. How many times in the human condition do we look for everyone and everything except ourselves to blame when really what we should do is turn around and face the issues. I hope next time I'm in that situation (well hopefully it's not too often, or at all!) I remember my friends on the train. And don't do what they did.
posted by bec @ 4:13 pm
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