Many of us have done things in our lives that were pretty close to landing us time in jail or even worse. From drugs and fights, to promiscuity, we have all taken unnecessary risks at one point or another. For about 2.3 million people, their outcome WAS jail. Currently 1 in 100 adults in America sit behind bars with no freedom. How close were we to being behind bars?

I can think of many times as an adolescent where anger swelled up in me so bad I could have definely made a bad choice if that person was in my presence. As a teenager, I can remember picking up a knife in anger after an argument. Thankfully I couldn't bring myself to use it, but the point is that thought was there. That was many years ago, times have changed a lot since then. How often do you think teenagers today think of killing someone after a day of being bullied, arguing with parents, or breakups? It has become common in our society to yell "I wish you were dead!" or "I could kill you right now!".

Well, many teenagers do have access to the knives, guns or strength and are killing those bullies, parents, or "lovers". "I could kill you right now!" is turning into more than just a saying, people are putting those awful words into action. Many parents often are afraid to discipline their children for fear of the teenager killing themselves or others. And many parents think that it could never occur to their child. I can tell you many parents right now whose children are in prison or dead, said that exact same thing.

There was a story just recently on the news where a young girl about 16-17 yrs. old plotted with her boyfriend to kill her mother. The police where tipped off and the plot was exposed. Could you imagine finding out your son or daughter was plotting to kill you? They had a complete plan and even hired a hit man! I was so shocked and blown away when I saw that story on the news, my first thought was "I would never do anything like that!". But without being trained how to control our negative thoughts, how many times have we had "thought" that could have very well lead to an action?

It is sad how easily most of us could have ended up behind bars over anger that usually subsided the same night or a few days later. We all have gotten caught up in moments but, how close have we been to doing something to someone that could have changed our lives forever? The scenes in the courtroom are usually the same, you have the young person crying and saying "I wasn't thinking!" or "I didn't know he/she was going to die, I didn't mean to kill them."

Anger turns to rage so fast most of the time you can't even tell you have let your emotions go too far. It is a sad reality in America that more and more teens are losing control of their emotions and more and more people are paying the price. Self control is something that is not taught in schools, we shrug off teen problems thinking they will grow out of it, that they will mature. When really our young adults are crying out for help. They don't know what to do with their anger, what to do about certain situations, or how to calm down and think rationally. To be honest, many adults don't know how to control themselves either so how can they teach the children?

So how close have you been to being killed? How close have you been to killing someone? How close have you been to being behind bars for one stupid moment of anger? For most of us, very close.