User:John1728

Article in the works:

HowTo: Take Risks

Being a teenager is about testing boundaries. When you were a child, you obeyed everything your parents and the government told you to do, because those things were the right things to do. But soon you will be an independent adult, free of boundaries, and you don't just want to explore your limit, you want to bust out of them, naked, drunk, and puking. It's all part of growing up.

So how far should you go? It's one thing to push the limits in a healthy way, but it's another thing to push the limits in an unhealthy way, which is something you should not do, because that would be unhealthy.

Healthy Risks

mind

It's important to keep our minds busy. Otherwise, things would get pretty darn boring! Here is a list of five healthy ways to expand your mind:

• End your sentences with prepositions.
• Collect stamps.
• Take a class in a subject you've never taken a class in before.
• Get an F and take a class in a subject you've already taken a class in because you need that class to graduate.
• Count to ten.

body

Below is a list of five splendiferous ways to push your body to the extreme:

• Go for a walk.
• Try knitting.
• Sign up for a race and forget to attend. Hey, at least you tried!
• Ride your bike, but make sure you remember to wear your knee-pads.
• Eat a cabbage.

spirit

Teenagers often forget that the spirit is the window to the soul. They forget a lot of things.

• Curse, but do it appropriately. After all, studies show that it's healthy to channel your dark side every once in a while. Examples of appropriate swear words: "Darn!" "Drat!" "Baby hippos!"
• Find a new way to be active in your house of religious worship. See if the candlesticks need polishing or something.
• Research other religions, but for the love of God, do not question your beliefs, whatever they are.
• Talk to your grandparents. Ignore what they have to say about risk-taking, though; they could take those risks because life was safer back then.
• Talk to yourself. Out loud.
• Read the New Yorker.

Unhealthy risks (do not attempt!)

mind

• Don't do drugs.

body

• Don't do drugs.
• Don't have sex.
• Don't ride a bike without knee-pads.
• Don't have sex without knee-pads.
• Don't swim in unchlorinated water. If you find some, please chlorinate it. The fish will thank you. (Note: Fish show their thanks by floating to the surface.)
• Don't swim naked.
• Don't ride a merry-go-round.
• Don't go outside during a thunderstorm.
• Don't climb a mountain. Don't even climb a tree. Climb Kansas instead. It's actually steeper than you think! Its height ranges from 750 feet near the Kansas River to 4000 feet on the western border.

spirit

• Don't do drugs.
• Don't read about Kansas. It's a waste of time.
• Don't use inappropriate swear words. Examples: "Cockles!" "Motherfuckery!" "Dingleberry!" "Vagina!" "Slartibartfast!"
• Don't join a band that uses swear words. Remember, words are not a right, they're a privilege!
• Don't eat peanut butter.
• Don't stay out past 9pm.
• Don't skip school.
• Don't talk to strangers.
• Don't hitchhike.
• Don't drive.
• Don't come out.
• Don't join committees that ask you to make up lists of risks that teenagers can take (that won't get your organization sued in the likely event that a teenager reading the list will at some point in the future do something stupid).

Author Bio

Burt Peobody, noted psychologist and Kansasologist, was born in 1952. He spent his childhood skinny dipping in shark-infested waters during lightning storms while wearing a tall iron hat; he is reported to have called this "fuckin' fun". He hitchhiked his way to and from school, which was covered with germs. Fortunately, he had an immune system, as did his ancestors who somehow managed not to die from every little bacterium. As a teenager in the 1960s, he did so much pot his genetic code is now part plant.

References

• http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/risktaking/#Healthy%20Risks