From Teen to Forgotten: How It Happens

And how it happenes before you know what hit you.

This is for anyone under 25 who still thinks they have time to waste.

There are two lives waiting for you. One with meaning. One without. You are the one who chooses which road to take.

You start off young. You’re full of energy, questions, hunger, anger, distraction. You think school is a prison. You think your parents are enemies. You think you’re being robbed of something because you don’t get to choose what you learn or how you feel. But that confusion? That fight you feel inside? That’s normal. That’s life testing you early.

Right now, you can barely see past the next trend, next argument, next post, next notification. But if you look hard enough, you’ll start to notice something dangerous. Time isn’t slowing down. And all these decisions you’re making today, especially the ones you think don’t matter, they do. They add up. They shape the adult you’re becoming.

Skip learning. Drown in drama. Spend your time chasing fake approval. Lie to people. Lie to yourself. Avoid hard things. Give in to every mood. You can do all that. Most people do. And most people end up miserable because of it. That’s not your phone’s fault. That’s not your school’s fault. That’s on you.

But you can also make different choices. You can shut it off. You can listen when someone wiser than you speaks. You can read what challenges you. You can ask what something costs before you want it. You can question who is benefiting from your distraction. You can build skills instead of just collecting opinions. And one day, you’ll see the payoff.

Somewhere in all this, you're also going to fall in love—or you’ll miss your chance. You’ll either build a life with someone or spend a lifetime chasing replacements. Love is not guaranteed. Family is not automatic. Both require sacrifice, honesty, patience, and truth. If you treat people like placeholders, if you run from conflict, if you use others instead of growing with them, you’ll end up with no one. But if you build something real—something forged in loyalty and shared struggle—you’ll have a bond that outlasts the noise.

The people who stay with you in old age, the ones who make your house a home, the ones who raise your children and walk with you into the hardest years of your life—those people don’t just appear. They come from choices made now. From love chosen when it was inconvenient. From trust built when it was hard.

You’ll be 25 and able to handle yourself in a room full of idiots. You’ll be 30 and respected by the right people, not popular with the wrong ones. You’ll be 40 and trusted, not tolerated. You’ll be 60 and surrounded by people who love you because you built a life worth loving. Or you won’t.

You’ll be 70 and alone. Because you made yourself impossible to care for. You’ll be 80 and forgotten. Because you lived your life forgetting others. You’ll be 90, maybe, in a state-run hospice, neglected by strangers who don’t know your namebecause you never built the kind of life that created family. Because you spent your youth rebelling against the very people who tried to teach you how to live.

The world does not owe you care. It does not owe you happiness. It does not owe you protection. The world is not safe. It never was. And you are going to need to be strong enough, smart enough, and clear-headed enough to make it through what’s coming.

Because by the time you are old enough to know the answers, they may no longer matter. You might be too late. You might live in a country without clean water. Without privacy. Without power. You might survive a nuclear war. Or you might not. But if you do, you will not be able to blame anyone for not being ready. You had time. You just spent it scrolling. You spent it trying to be liked. You spent it chasing images. And none of that will protect you when it matters most.

Right now, your choices are writing the script for your future. Pay attention to what you’re trading for comfort. Pay attention to where your attention goes. Because in the end, you will either have a mind sharpened by effort or dulled by entertainment. A body shaped by discipline or wrecked by neglect. A family built through love or a room in a system that will forget you the Way before you stop breathing.

And somewhere along the line, you will either build something with someone—or you won’t. That bond, the one between two people who choose each other, who build together, struggle together, forgive each other, and raise a family—that is the foundation that holds you when everything else falls apart. If you chase love for the wrong reasons, or throw it away when it gets hard, or never take the risk to open up at all, you may find yourself surrounded by nothing. And in the end, that is exactly what you will have.

Because family is not guaranteed. It has to be earned. If you do the work, if you build your life around love instead of ego, truth instead of performance, you’ll have people by your side when it matters most. You’ll have a home. You’ll have someone to help you when you can no longer help yourself.

But if you don’t? If you ignore real connection, disrespect others, destroy trust, or live for yourself alone? You may spend your final days alone, unloved, and unremembered. In a bed no one visits. In a world that kept moving without you.
it a simple choice.

Children are not just accidents of biology. They are the result of sacrifice, patience, and love. They are the ones who will decide if your name means anything once you’re gone.

If you build that kind of life, they’ll carry you with them. If you don’t, the system will carry you to a place where you wait to die.

The choice is still yours. In the end, you either chose the American dream or the American nightmare. There is no middle ground.
You choose.

And you have to live with what you chose.
Take it from a guy who knows.