Life is either a daring adventure or nothing

"Sigh.. I don't think I can make it for my O-levels already. My friends are all doing much better than me. I think I'm gonna fail..."

"Shit lah.. My whole family is in a mess... I'm in a mess too! Looks like I'm gonna be a messed up person for rest of my life! I give up!"

These are some statements that I hear across the week from some youths whom are going through rough times in their life. Most of them are their wits end.

Life is tough. Especially for youths of today with family, friends, school's demands and expectations on them... etc No wonder the depression and suicide cases are rocketing up fast! But before we put the blame on social pressure... let's do a check on ourselves first..

One thing that I feel we are lacking as compared with our parents' generation is that attitude of perseverance or fighting spirit that never gives up! Majority of us have been brought up in very sheltered environment, overly protected such that we don't know how to react when the realities of life hits us! We have never been trained in the "School of Hard Knocks".. and never mastered the art of perseverance!

Perseverance 101: We can never escape from problems in life. A life without problems is NOT a life at all! We either learn to cope with the mounting pressure and overcome them, or we can just be like a sitting duck and get overwhelmed by it. We can't change much of the environment.. But we can change our attitude and mindset!