Lesson 6: Dumb Decisions Destroy Communities

• Community: A place where people live together within certain geographic boundaries; the residents share common interests. When their actions and interests conflict, their communal bond is destroyed.

• The entire community gets degraded when its members make huge mistakes like Whopper did. Each mistake ultimately leads to the destruction of the community.

• Do you want to leave for the next generation a messed up community? Or do you want to leave them a valuable and safe place to play, learn, work and prosper? Do you want your community to constantly get better?  Or do you want to destroy it and have nothing to pass to the children who will follow in your footsteps?

• A community should be a place that teaches you the valuable lessons in life that are necessary to become the best that you can be. So many people want to leave their communities and never come back. Some have a good reason to feel that way. Crime and poverty are the main reasons. However, even in the most violent and poorest communities, there lies untapped valuable potential.

• If you look for it by focusing on the positive things in your community rather than the negative things, you will discover it and come up with innovative and creative ideas that can help change your community and the world.

• Don't wait for someone else to do it, because it is not for someone else to do; you can be a leader and strive to be the change that you want to see.

•  Step outside and look at your neighbors. See their beauty and potential. When you see bad things happening in your community, you are only seeing the problems that a small percentage of residents are creating. The vast majority of your neighbors are caring people who want peace and happiness in the community.

• Some people in your community are negative-thinking haters. Haters are a part of every community. Haters are part of everyday life. Do not let them stop you from doing great things. Haters are going to hate you no matter what—whether you do good or bad things. So, you might as well do great things and let them hate on that. You see, the best way to overcome a hater is to succeed and be kind to them—because generally speaking, inside most haters there’s a bit of jealousy.

• Remember this: Don’t get violent with a hater. Ignore the negative energy that haters stir up. Don’t pick up a gun and start shooting up your community to get at a hater. So many little babies are being shot and killed in communities across the country—all because someone wanted to shoot a hater, but accidentally shot a baby or innocent bystander.                             

• Your community is not a place for gunfire and violence. It is designed for people to live among each other in peace and harmony.

• Intelligent decisions build communities. Dumb decisions destroy communities.

• What kind of decisions will you make?

  Take Action: Do What Needs to Be Done

• If you don't take action to better yourself and your community today, you might not be around tomorrow to do it. If you don't take action and apply the discipline necessary to change yourself, who will? Only you can change you!

• If you do not make plans for your future, the prison system will plan your life for you. Plan to get educated, develop discipline, maintain positive thoughts and carry out constructive actions. Your thoughts and actions are the keys to changing your life for the betterment of yourself and your community.

• Develop a strong since of conscience, which simply means that you think about how your actions will affect others before you do whatever it is you want to do. Promise yourself, your family and your friends that you will never commit crimes. A lot of people say they are committed to being a better person, but it takes dedication to truly commit to the process of becoming a better person. You must do the work!

Four Eternal Truths

I’ll close this chapter by listing four helpful and eternal truths. You may have heard these ideas before, but that’s because they are so true. They have helped millions of people stay focused and disciplined throughout their lives:

1.      Stay away from negative thinking and negative people.

2.      Think positive.

3.      It doesn't matter where you start.

4.      It matters where you finish.

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