Letter to a Young Man In Detention

I’m going to tell you what I used to tell my sons: Never satisfy a short-term impulse at the expense of a long-term goal. Never do what feels good in the moment if it’s going to cost you something that matters a whole lot more in the end. The trade is never worth it.

I’ll bet you the inability to think long term is found in 90 percent of the young men in that detention center. They wanted to make their mothers proud, they wanted to prove something to somebody, they wanted to fulfill this dream or that . . . and they threw it away for something momentary, fleeting, ephemeral and, ultimately, worthless.

When people make investments, they are looking for a return, a profit. In your case, that profit would be that you leave that place and never look back, that you build a life that makes you a credit to your community as opposed to one of its deficits.

You can do that. Step One is to always remember: Eyes on the prize.