As I walked across the stage, proudly accepting my high school diploma, I searched the crowd over looking for my childhood friend, George. At that moment it struck me odd to think how different people's lives turn out, and the reasons why we choose different paths. I was one of the lucky ones: I had a supportive family who encouraged me not only to finish high school, but to go on to college. I have always had a feeling of unconditional love for and from my family. George, who grew up in a less supportive home and in a neighborhood filled with crime, did not have the same benefits. I wondered how and why it was that George, a very bright boy, ended up a high school drop-out, involved in gangs. Many people like to believe young men like my friend are evil and that they choose the life of violence to rebel. I however know, George being my example, that many youths turn to gangs because they did not have the support and love like I experienced as a child.

Looking back, I try and pinpoint the time when our lives turned in different directions. It was not a particular instance that made me choose education as my future, and George choose gang life. It was a process and a lifestyle that was handed to us from birth. While I was growing up going to the movies and the mall with my family, George was often left home with his two brothers, without a father and with a drug addict mother. Sadly, this story sounds all too common and cliche in today's world. Whenever George's mother was around, which was not that often, she could not give him the attention he needed. Without a proper adult role model and without the values that most children are brought up believing important, George did not start off with a good hand. I, on the other hand, had a mother and a father to teach me and comfort me when I needed someone.

Being from such different backgrounds, I envied George and what I thought he had. While I was at home, he was out hanging on the streets with his friends. When I had to be home for dinner every night by five thirty, George had the privilege of no curfew. To me he had the freedom to do whatever, wherever and whenever he wanted. Now that I look back, I realize that it was not his choice to hang out on the streets, it was because he had nowhere else to go. It never occurred to me that he might have actually envied me, and the stability that I had with my family.

I always wondered, but never questioned, why, in elementary school, George always wanted to come over my house and be with my family. I thought it was odd that a kid would want to sit around with a family that was not his, when he could be out with his friends. It seems that , at that point in both out lives we were searching for different things. I was looking for freedom from the order of my family. George was searching for support and stability. I found my road to freedom was furthering my education[;] he found his goals in the form of a gang.

As our high school days came and went, George and I continued being friends, but not as close as we once were. Our backgrounds and differences began to become more prevalent in our relationship. It was during these years that I began to realize how lucky I had been to grow up in the kind of home that I did. When I thought of George's situation, I felt bad and began to understand the reasons why he dropped out of school. Because he had virtually no discipline from adults as a child, he could not handle the regiment of school.

It was during these years that George got involved in a gang. At that time I could not understand why my childhood friend would want to be involved in such a negative group of people. I, like most people, believed that gang members were a bunch of bad boys with no morals and no conscience. If my definition was true, then how did one of my best friends, whom I always believed to be a very sweet, understanding guy, fit into this stereotype? George, to my surprise, got along just fine in the gang. When I once asked him why he wanted to run the streets, he replied, "because that's where I live."

After I received my diploma, I sat in the stands thinking of my past. I thought of the support and love my family gave me through the years. I silently thanked my mom and dad for setting my curfews and giving me rules to follow. My parents helped in giving me all I needed at home, emotionally and physically. Those are the reasons why I chose education as my path. George, as a child, lacked in parental support and was in a way emotionally neglected. He found his support and comfort from his gang. It is a very sad thing for children these days to have a childhood like George had. Hopefully in the future people will not look at gang members as only tough guys, but also as lonely people who are looking for a place to fit in.