I used to think we were all pretty much alike … I used to.

I’ve come to believe we couldn’t be more different.

Through youth, the majority of society learns how to create and fill their unique position of fitting into their place with everyone else. But there are many who simply cannot. This first group, though, is no threat to society, whatsoever.

But whether it’s caused partly by their early environment, or from having a few more crossed wires than most (everyone has crossed wires), they could lead much happier and more productive lives if they are simply identified while still very young, and provided the help they need while it will do them the most good.

They want to be like everyone else, nothing more, yet they struggle just to fit in, and they feel as if they are doing everything right, just like everyone else. But it is not something they can do on their own, and sadly, most will never understand why it doesn’t work for them, unless we’re there to help.

Imagine having grammar school counselors, and even teachers, being trained to see the warning signs, just so they can identify those struggling people — they are not just ‘kids’ … they are people, adults-in-training — so when they’re still young, and there’s still time, they see their chance, their strength … and feel the confidence they need to achieve greatness.

There are others who simply can’t fit in, either, but if they are not identified and helped at a very young age, they have a huge potential of becoming a violent threat to society in a very short period of time. Their personas are the result of severely crossed wires, far beyond most, and are probably due to genetics, their early environment, or even both.

We need to catch them early, provide all the help to get those wires realigned, because they, too, have the ability to achieve their own greatness, and they deserve that chance. Greatness or violence … is there any uncertainty here?

If we don’t change, we will still be building more and more prisons, and wasting lives that could potentially be fairly easy to fix, and ones that could lead to greatness.

We, as a society, have advanced more in the past 50 years, than in the previous 500 years combined. But many crucial elements of our society are lagging way behind, and the question is: ‘why?’ The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is that it would require ‘change’ — something to be avoided at all costs. And very possibly, by pure selfishness and greed.

People may lose jobs … such as prison guards, attorneys, and maybe even judges … because they won’t be needed. It’s change that’s needed. Yet instead of our system helping those young people avoid following the genetic path they were unknowingly wired for, we wait until they make a big mistake, and lock them up. We have the ability and technology today, with a clear view of technological leaps and bounds tomorrow, so as to help guide them to a path they had no idea even existed.

It’s our next generation. Who else, but us, can they rely on?

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