- 13,373
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- 15
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- Age 30
- Seen Jan 28, 2019
I'm pretty confident that I'll never smoke or do drugs. I'll stand by my 'I never have, never will...' phrase for those two things.
I really don't think I could put what I want to say any better than Scarf has already said it. Yeah, sure, I really have no idea if I will in the future or not because I don't know the future. But when I do say something along the lines of this, it's less of a "pssh I'll NEVER do a thing like that" but more like "I don't want to do that because I know the consequences and I'll try to do everything in my power to not do it". That's my perspective, anyway. I don't want to drink in college, so I won't. Will I end up drinking at some point? Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't want to, especially considering that my family has a history of alcohol problems.When someone says "I will never _______" they don't literally mean it will never happen. What they mean is that it is something that goes against something fundamental to their views and their image of themselves at that moment, and that they wish it would never happen. It's a kind of reinforcing mantra, a kind of positive reinforcement.
So like with me. I say things like "I will never smoke" and "I will never get drunk" because I don't want to do these things and if I didn't try to take a firm stance I think my ability to resist temptation wouldn't be as strong and I'd loose respect for myself.