Confession of My Teenagehood

When I was about in my 2nd Form during my school days, I was surrounded by friends who took up smoking, pills, stealing and everything that is exciting and ‘fun’ to adolescents around that age. The school that I attended was one of the famous ‘gangsters’ schools in the area. Naturally, when I was admitted into such school, I began to be influenced. But don’t get me wrong. I did not smoke nor taken any pills even if I was out with them to disco. This had been my principle whenever I was out having fun with them. Oddly but most unfortunately though, I took up the habit of stealing. Most of my friends stole things from shops especially in shopping centres. Having heard of their ‘adventures’, I too felt that it’s ‘nothing’ if I do it although I know it was wrong to do so. We all stole, probably because of the excitement. Or maybe it was due to the desire to have something we don’t have as compared to our friends. Whatever the reason, from then on I started stealing. I don’t remember what was the first thing I stole. But I definitely remember what was the last thing I stole because that was when I was caught red-handedly.

On that particular occasion, I was getting bolder in stealing. I walked around in a departmental store and then I simply just took off clothes from its hangers and walked out from the entrance. It goes without saying, I was caught red-handedly and brought to meet the supervisor in his room. The supervisor gave me the chance to explain myself. After hearing my explanation, instead of calling the police to hand me in, he only called my mother because he decided to give me a chance to repent. Now as I’ve said, that was the last time I stole. I was fortunate enough to be given the chance to turn over a new leaf. Had I been handed over to the police, my fate today wouldn’t be the same.

The reason I decided to make this confession is because I came across something that was written by Zig Ziglar in his book, See You At the Top with regard to treatment towards ex-con. He highlighted correctly the fact that our society has an interesting concept of justice. When someone commits a crime he should pay for it. However, society goes one step beyond its treatment of those who have paid for their crimes. Society continues to deal with the ex-con in such a way that many of the convicts return to prison because even if the convicts have paid the price, it’s not over. We continue to discriminate them. The reason is because we have a natural tendency to see the “con” and forget the “ex”. We see them as thieves and treat them as one.

I believe such trend do exist in our society which sadly, is continuing without much attention. Therefore, when I read about this, it reminded me of my past. As I’ve said above, “Had I been handed over to the police, my fate today wouldn’t be the same”. I may not be jailed (as I was still a minor in the eyes of law) but I will have uneraseable criminal records which will be subject to discrimination whenever I look for jobs or anything I do in the future. Even though this will remain a dark spot in my life, nevertheless I turned over a new leaf. I’ve seen examples of ex-convicts who also turned over a new leaf. Therefore, as long as they have paid the price of their wrongs and repented, why should we continue to discriminate them?