Dear Boys,
I need you to stop checking your phones and stop playing Fortnite for a few minutes. Listen up. This is really important and may indeed be a matter of life or death. Potentially your life or someone else’s is at stake here. Understand your futures depend on the many decisions you will make while at school. So, it’s simple: make good decisions.
Bad decisions, like assaulting someone from another school or even your own school, can come with life-changing consequences. Sometimes they can be fatal. Get it horribly wrong in this dog-eat-dog world we live in now and you may never be able to leave the trap you walked into as a teenager.
Already this year, we have seen ugly headlines describing a brutal attack in South Auckland on an innocent teenager whose only crime was wearing the wrong uniform and going to a school outside the area. He could easily have died. In West Auckland, a student was knifed by another pupil in the school grounds. Police took a boy into custody, the other went to hospital. It was over nothing important. It seldom is, yet you risk potentially lifelong consequences from a moment of madness, and what for? Online notoriety and likes? Before swinging that punch or bringing out a weapon, stop – just for a moment – and consider the consequences of your actions in 10 minutes time or a year or a decade.
What’s more, the evidence is now filmed by crowds who gather to watch – and those who thought they might walk away scot-free because they were behind the camera(s) are wrong; a number of them will be people the schools and police will want to talk to. Did they do anything to stop it or did their actions encourage such violence? Nothing is a secret when 100 phones are recording. The details are graphic and barbaric and used to be the sort of things that happened in other countries. But boys, it appears you are surrounded by this violence online and this has normalised it for you.
You’re deluded; this is not normal nor acceptable. Maybe it’s because the line has become so blurred between the real and online worlds. Are you online so much you no longer see the difference until it’s far too late? And when you take a step back and reflect on the fact that 10-15 kids beat the living daylights out of one innocent student from the same neighbourhood, what do you think of that? Heroic or downright cowardly? Fifteen on one? Embarrassing.
So, what are the consequences? Prison, for one, if the damage you inflict is serious enough. You’ll go to jail and share a cell. I met and interviewed a bloke called Api recently for my podcast. He got his first paid job aged 45 - when he left prison after 30 years. For 30 years, he thought he was the toughest, coolest cat around. He looks back now and shakes his head at his life, where he respected no one, including himself.
He left school at 14, lived a life of crime. He now sees the folly of it all, the waste of a life, so works with kids and tells them – in no uncertain terms – not to take the path he did. He hasn’t put a foot wrong since leaving prison and is making up for a lot of lost time, including getting to know his nine kids. I’ll happily bring Api to your school and interview him on stage so you can hear his story. I guarantee you may struggle to leave your seat after you’ve heard what he has to say because it will be a shock, a wake-up call – and that might be what some of you need.
Sadly, I fear the ones among you who most need to read this won’t, and will carry on and the consequences will flow. Those consequences might not bring a prison sentence – instead, it could be permanent injuries and disabilities if you’re on the receiving end. You might not even make it out alive.
I knew a guy once who decided to visit the mother of his child while she had a protection order against him. He never set foot on her property but was jailed anyway. That night, the biggest, toughest guy in Mt Eden Prison clobbered him in the head with a pool ball. He was resuscitated but was left with a serious lifelong head injury.
Other examples? I lost two classmates. One drowned after a big night; the other made the call to ride the escalator handrail three floors up and fell. Two moments of madness, and the ultimate price was paid. The hurt their deaths caused was immense.
The bad decisions you make might mean being expelled. Now, expulsion from school may sound like a dream come true to some of you but it risks a lifetime of just scraping by. Good decisions tend to equal more opportunities, such as good jobs, money in the bank, and generally being happier and healthier.
Today’s world is not kind. It’s all too easy to set yourself up for failure by trying to be tough, by bullying people, by arranging fights through social media so everyone turns up and films them. It’s just as easy to think things won’t go wrong for you, that somehow, you’re different. Maybe that’s why young men rush toward bad decisions, but when you stuff it up, the phone stops ringing, the girls stop texting, other schools close their gates and employers never get back to you.
I’m far from perfect. I have been bullied; I have dished it out. I got into a nasty fight when another school student buckled the wheel of my 10-speed bike by stomping on it. I thought my dad would hit the roof, so I lunged at this kid’s 6ft 3in frame and smacked him. He dropped to the ground, and there’s seldom been a time when I have been more scared. I knew I’d got it badly wrong, and I got into a pile of trouble. I learnt to walk away from arguments and fights because I don’t want to do that ever again.
Remember boys, this is your life, you control it. The school is not to blame when you make a bad call. If you make the call, if you ignore advice, it’s on you. Your parents are not to blame. Only you can motivate yourself, get up each morning, make the right decisions, and only you can decide to hang out with the right people.
So, here’s your test and reality check: Do you fight that boy, or do you walk away? If you fight him and hit him hard in the head, will he get back up or are you facing a murder/manslaughter charge and jail for 10 years or more?
The world needs you to step up and become responsible young men. So, play sport, get involved in your community, become an artist. If fighting is your only interest, change the record and get a new hobby. Keep good company. Turn up. Show respect. Play hard. Make good calls.
This is your only chance at life. It’s not a dress rehearsal. If you remember nothing else, avoid the moments of madness, and your life should change for the better.
Good luck boys, I believe you can achieve anything.
