Advice for Youngsters

DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,

BE READY FOR THE BEAUTIES OF UNIVERSITY LIFE

BUT DON'T FORGET THESE TOO!

Dear University Student,

You are stepping into a period in your life where you will experience more freedom, more privacy, and new experiences.

We have some suggestions for you to make these days happier, more satisfying, secure, and peaceful. Our goal is not just to provide you with a profession, but also to prepare you for life and to share experiences for a better quality future. Our suggestions will help you gain quality living principles and psychological resilience skills. We want to gift you two of our books in digital format: The first one is "Being a Conscious Young Person", and the second is "Addiction, Virtual or Real".

You can consider these books as the sharing of life experiences by a more senior friend of yours. Because a wise person is one who learns from the experiences of others instead of the costly trial-and-error process.

A DIFFERENT VIEW ON ADDICTION

In terms of public information and awareness, there are three misconceptions in addiction prevention policies:

- First, fighting addiction by scaring, shocking, and showing some disastrous results.

- Second, fighting addiction by explaining the properties of addictive substances.

- Third, fighting addiction by reducing it only to the treatment of patients.

The first approach, by reminding negativity, creates an avoidant effect rather than deterring people from the topic. People in the risk group and users already often use denial as a defense mechanism. This method rarely works!

The second approach, by arousing curiosity, has an inviting effect similar to "tempting the horse with oats", making the person more easily fall into the trap of pleasure. It does more harm than good!

The third approach does not consider prevention, and patients are admitted to hospitals 10-15 times a year but still continue to be addicted.

WHAT IS RIGHT?

Primary prevention ensures that healthy individuals increase their psychological resilience and become healthy, happy, and satisfied people; by teaching fundamental skills, it ensures they do not feel the need for substances.

Secondary prevention should consider the psychological needs of individuals in the risk group. Personalized support is very effective.

Tertiary prevention is to prevent the relapse of individuals after hospital treatment with rehabilitation systems. Success rates increase significantly with special follow-up systems.

Considering addiction as a "global epidemic", I wanted to provide you with some fundamental life skills and quick tips:

"For a Happy Life": 24 Golden Basic Skills:
Protective (Positive) Psychology suggests using core values and developing some skills. 

For example:

1. Be open, transparent, and honest in communication.
2. Form strong, benevolent, one-on-one, and social relationships.
3. "See the beauty, think beautifully, know the bad but always look at the good side of everything to enjoy life."
4. Be able to see both the positive and negative, seek positive meaning, develop a perspective to turn negativity into opportunity; excessive desire feeds its opposite, remember.
5. Choose passionate, meaningful, sublime, and positive goals as a purpose of life.
6. Consider difficulties as "resilience training".
7. Turn traumas into "transformative trauma" with the opportunity aspect rather than the threat aspect.
8. Take an empathetic perspective, try to understand people instead of judging them.
9. Use compassion more than hostility.
10. Use forgiveness more than revenge.
11. Use gratitude more than complaining.
12. Use gratitude instead of jealousy.
13. Instead of trying to change the world, change ourselves; the greatest freedom is honesty.
14. Capture happiness and pleasure in ordinary things and small successes.
15. The past cannot be forgotten, nor can it be brought back by punishment, but it can be distanced.
16. Believing in high values is a mental refuge; it is the source of hope and motivation. Choose sacred values that give meaning to your life and reduce uncertainty with your "mental laboratory".
17. Even if you cannot forgive the injustices you experienced, do not retaliate; one way of taking revenge is to be successful; it is possible to get rid of that burden by not using your right.
18. Working on mistakes makes a person master them; every criticism can be an instructor.
19. Arrogance breeds loneliness, humility fosters social richness; silent goodness provides inner peace and well-being.
20. To be both successful and happy, know yourself, have values, live moderately, always focus on positive goals, and keep hope high; thus, you will live proudly and honorably.
21. Eat less, sleep less, talk less; ask more, think more, work more.
22. The three most precious things in the jewelry store of civilization are compassion, patience, and knowing one's limits; it takes a lot of effort to obtain them.
23. Lying is a type of theft; it steals your capital of trust and others' right to know the truth. If you filled a room with evils, lying would be the key to open the door.
24. Live in the moment, not just the memory; learn from the past, look to the future, but live today.