In a gentle act of kindness from the universe, I turned 21 last week. This fall signals the beginning of my last year here at UF.
These two facts probably make it seem like I should be good friends with the nice people at Livers’R’Us or that I’m some kind of professional at sneaking and sipping booze whenever possible.
That’s not the case.
If I were on MTV, my episode would be titled “True Life: I’ve Never Had A Drink.”
Does this make me better than people who do drink? Not at all.
It does make me safer, however.
On average, more than 10,000 people will die this year in drunken driving vehicle crashes. That’s about one every 50 minutes.
Two years ago, 52,346 people were arrested for driving under the influence in the state of Florida alone.
Obviously, we’ve all heard the lectures: Everything in moderation, don’t drink and drive, just say “no.”
Those lessons are the first ones to fly out the window if they try to come between a college student and his or her fun.
I don’t tell my friends how to live their lives; I’ll accept everyone for who they are and what they do. But there’s an unhealthy need to fit in with our peers that I think could drive some people crazy.
By all means, please, have fun! Enjoy yourselves! We’re all “fine, fresh, fierce,” as the song goes.
I want you to know that it’s possible to have fun without damaging or bringing potential danger to yourselves.
I’m not asking people to abandon their way of life. Just examine your choices to see if they make sense.
A big part of why I don’t drink is my size. I’m extremely petite. It would more than likely take even less than one drink to put me over the edge of tipsy.
Call me a control freak, but I like to have full awareness over myself and my circumstances. There’s no need to leave any of that up to chance.
But it doesn’t matter what I think, right? I’m one very small person in one very large world. I completely understand that people make mistakes; I also understand that we are supposed to learn from them.
For example, I can tell you for sure that I won’t be a mathematician. I know because I’ve learned from the two decades of my life that I’ve spent suffering in almost every math course I’ve been forced to take.
I know I’m not going to be a judge on cooking competition shows such as “Iron Chef” because I gave up eating meat nearly eight years ago.
However, I do know that for all of those math classes that I toiled through, I found where my strengths were located.
It wasn’t until my journalism courses here at UF that I could begin to make out what direction my life would go.
And while I may be missing out on all the meat or alcohol the world has to offer, at least I know I’m doing my part in setting an example for future generations.
That is, unless we don’t find a way to sustain ourselves and there ends up being not many more future generations after all.
I’ve learned from my own mistakes as well as mistakes made by others. Don’t feel obligated to start imitating everything that I do, though.
I watch an awful lot of reality TV on Bravo.
Sami Main is a journalism senior at UF. Her column appears on Tuesdays. You can contact her at opinions@alligator.org.
