Keep trying, don’t give up

should. It may be winning a championship, getting a promotion or having your heart put back together, but whatever it is, it is worth attaining.

ASST COPY EDITOR

BLM726@CABRINI EDU

There are things in this world that will push us further than we ever knew we could go. There are things that will destroy us, joy us and annoy us but nevertheless there is a life we have been given to live.

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone has something to offer. We can make an impact on a daily basis. It may not be inventing a cure for cancer or a solution to global warming, but it is a contribution felt by everyone you’ve ever touched in this world.

We have all reached the point of exhaustion, where we would rather give up than keep going but we must believe there is a reason we

It is the hardest thing in the world to look at someone you love who is on the verge of giving up completely. It is hard to look at them and ask them to keep going. It is terrible to feel helpless. But what we need to remember is that we must not give up either. We cannot give up on ourselves and also the ones we love.

Some of us have bad luck; where it seems we just cannot win. But when you think about it, trying has got to better than surrendering. It is incredibly tough to keep going when it seems you can do no right. Life throws a curve ball and we didn’t even know we were up to bat. Everyone has felt it. Everyone has experienced it. So why is it so hard to find a way out?

We struggle to find something to hold on to when nothing is going right. It’s easier to be lazy and sit around all day than it is to keep active. But don’t we get tired of being tired? We how to say “no” to peer pressure back in middle school and then again in high school? That it was “okay” to turn down “friends” who coerced you into doing something because in the end, they weren’t really your friends?

Okay, I know. I went to middle school and high school too and I know that it is never that easy to say no to someone you think of as a friend. However, if you know it’s wrong and have any respect for yourself whatsoever, then you know how to stand up to that person without feeling like an idiot.

And if you can’t stand up to that person because you are afraid to lose them as a friend – then they were never your friend to begin with because friends respect friends’ decisions.

Also, along with peer pressure, will-power to stay strong against friends and drug use is another main factor of why so many people succumb to addiction. These two go handin-hand.

Standing your ground in a situation where friends are trying to persuade you to do something is one of those things you will feel proud of later, no matter how many times your “friends” made fun of you or mocked you.

Throughout the documentary were mock-commercials in which a story from the documentary was turned into one- to twominute anti-meth use ad.

One ad started with a young girl driving in her car with her voice-over saying something like, “I was on my way to the party. I wish my car would have gone off the road. I wish it would have flipped over. I wished the crash would have broken my neck. I wish I would have died. Instead, I went to the party and got addicted to meth.” Then a quick shot of the girl lighting up with dry, cracked skin, wrinkles, dark circles under her eyes and cuts and scars on her lips and face. She would rather have died that night than go to that party and start using meth. Wow.

Peer pressure is a terrible thing. Having respect for yourself and for your body to not allow something so deadly slowly kill you isn’t.

Methamphetamine

• Street name: crank, crystal, speed

• Methods of usage: Usually injected, also sniffed or taken orally

• Small dose effects: Euphoria, increased engery, hyperactivity, sleeplessness

• Large dose effects: Halucinations, paranoia, high fever, heart failure, death

• Long term effects: physical addiction, distorted perception and thoughts, anxiety, suicidal tendencies

JILLIAN SMITH/SOURCE: MCT CAMPUS