A nice autumn morning… I leave home for college, and going along the road to the bus stop I suddenly realize that I’m walking with the two passers-by on my sides, a yardman holding a broom and a  bucket in his hands and a decent-looking person with a leather case and car keys, supposedly, a businessman. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m between the people whose fates have already been set; moreover, they have so much got used to their present day life style that it doesn’t come to their minds that the things could be different.  I wonder whether the yardman is sorry that he hasn’t become some kind of a businessman either. Did he study hard when he was young and did he try all the ways to find a better job to afford to send his future children to the best town school?  Perhaps, he wanted and dreamt of a better life, but has failed to realize his dreams, and the reasons for that might be only his laziness and lack of purposefulness.

I myself don’t want to be sorry for not having realized my life dreams and goals, so I try to keep to the point "All or nothing”. For me, if you are born to this world, you are to do something really meaningful, so that you could consider yourself an intelligent citizen of the country you live in.

Well, I suppose that most young people are worried about their future and try to make it brighter. And would you also like to do something great for Russia? If you do, what is it for you to be a real citizen of the country? I’m sure that we all have different ways of thinking and views on life and would certainly like to tell about them to others one day. So, how hard can you try to prove your point of view that people should protect the environment, for example? Sometimes people support each other in something, but occasionally they may have great disputes on certain things, and thus new ideas arise which could be of much use for the society. We should thank  those who keep to a new thought  and have a burning desire to let others join him and develop the idea, for example, how to inspire most of the students read more books or make them lead a healthy way of life. Have you ever thought of what you can do to make our world nicer?

            It may seem a banal thing to young people to see, for example, somebody wearing a T-shirt with an emblem and the name of an organization that calls for wild animals’ protection. For some teenagers it’s just like wearing fashionable clothes and doing nothing special to protect those poor animals. I guess the reason for it is just a lack of education and bad influence of mass media, including computers, on youth. Today youth prefer spending most of their time glued to the screens of the TV-sets and computers or more chatting in ICQ rather than take part in social life. They imitate people from the west and act like them in life not caring much of their own country’s prosperity, leaving that part of young men who try to develop their good manners in a minority.

No doubt, each of us at least one time has asked himself a question like "What can I do for myself, the government and other people?”, but, unfortunately, could not find a support from others at that very moment when he was highly inspired and ready to develop his idea. In this case it’s better to find someone who holds the same opinion and realize the idea together. Two heads are better than one! Moreover, there are a lot of youth organizations in Russia which would like to see you as their member. Here you can move your suggestions on certain topics and get experience on how to implement your ideas into life.

            Unfortunately, it’s in the past now when most of the Soviet people were united with one main goal: to defend their country and make it prosperous. Now every person pursues his individual interests not taking consideration of other people.  Here I mean that today most of young people are only interested in that how to graduate from an educational institution and get the best job: well-paid and prestigious.  They try to earn more money and dream of going abroad to live there. They think that other countries are the better places to live in. Unlike our fortune searchers, young people from those countries are not eager to move to Russia. Why? I suppose, because they are proud of their country, appreciate their traditions and values, no matter the situation in the country is, just keeping to the point and making everything possible to achieve their life goals.

Yes, sometimes friends’ attractive offers to go somewhere to relax and our weak-willingness make us, teenagers, get out of the planned route in life and drag down in an abyss, which may have a sad end. It’s a common thing that nothing comes easily, and, as for me, if something happens, I try to solve the problem as though it were one more step on my way to the main goal. Nothing grows on an empty ground, so it’s good to find the fulcrum and at least one supporter of your views on life and start to carry them out. Of course, there are other people around with their concepts of life, and I have to take them into consideration too, that’s why it’s so difficult to keep to the right point and to vary between so many other ones. But independence and responsibility for the actions are the main features that can describe me as an individual and give more prospects in life.