Alcohol makes you stupider than marijuana does -- and meaner.

I once read about an assault at an apartment that was raided, and the cops said that the occupants were smoking marijuana. That may be true, but the source of the assault was not likely marijuana. From my experience, and the experience of countless others, marijuana is a drug that turns you inward, making you think about who you are and why you exist and how you're connected to all these other people in the room and in your life, etc. And to the cosmos.

It also makes you hungry. Gives you "the munchies".

Not exactly the impetus to violence, right? I can honestly say that I've never known anyone high from marijuana who perpetrated any violence on another human or who commited any crime. When you're under the influence of the "weed", you're pretty much locked into your own mind, and the minds of those around you. You're feeling "one with the universe", and the last
thing you're thinking about is assaulting anyone.

Alcohol, on the other hand, does tend to un-leash anti-social behavior. You've no doubt heard of bar fights. But have you ever heard of a pot party fight? I don't even want to think about it: all those stoned souls winging at shadows, lost in the beauty of the arm movement itself, totally forgetting what they were trying to hit. Marijuana doesn't make you want to attack someone, but alcohol can, and cocaine and meth and heroin, too.

The difference is that marijuana is not addictive, while the others are. If I run out of weed, I'm bummed. But I'm not going to knock over a 7-11 for money to buy more. On the other hand, if I run out of booze or meth or coke, I very well might take a gun into that 7-11, and maybe shoot the clerk for good measure. I'm out of my mind. On marijuana, I'm very much IN my mind, and I'm not about to do something as desperate and un-me as robbery and murder.

Marijuana is a spice, something that makes thinking more enjoyable. Alcohol is a mind-changer and is that much more dangerous. A DUI is a serious matter: you could kill someone because your reflexes are impaired. A "driving under the influence of weed" is serious, too, as you might think you're flying in the clouds instead of motoring down the Interstate. Neither drug should be ingested when you're going to be driving a car.

But sitting on the front porch on a summer afternoon with friends, or around a campfire under a starry sky, I'd pick marijuana over alcohol any time.

If it were just f*cking legal.

Don't work for anyone who takes your job more seriously than you do.

So you've got a job, and you're glad you have it, and you devote yourself to it. After all, you need the money and you may very well have others depending on you. This is a big deal.

Then you get a call from the boss: Where have you been today? Who did you talk to? What about? Did you close any business? When can I come and work with you?

Your heart sinks, and you have to take a deep breath. You answer the best you can, but your boss points out to you that he/she needs more detailed information, and can you have it in his/her Inbox by 7 the next morning?

Now you're really in a panic: you have to account for every hour -- and every half-hour -- of the day before. How you spent your day. And this is the way it's going to be forever?

You're working for someone who takes your job more seriously than you do.

What that means is that there are two ways of looking at any job: from the inside and from the outside. You're obviously looking at it from the inside, the day-to-day triumphs and frustrations, the messy nature of it, the starts and stops, the nos more often than yeses, the imcompetents you work with, the lousy pay, etc.

Your boss, on the other hand, is looking at your job much more simply: either you're productive, according to his/her standards, or you're not. You produce X amount of revenue or you don't. If you don't, you're likely to be fired. Period.

I've heard that there are bosses who look at employees as people, not just revenue-generators.

I don't know if they exist, but if they do, that's who you want to work for. It doesn't mean that you won't be fired if you don't meet the goals set for you, but it does mean that you'll be treated as a whole person, and allowances may be made for you someday when you need more time at home to look after family or to check yourself into a clinic or whatever. This kind of boss values the person above the job.

The boss you don't want to work for values the job above the person. He/she takes your job more seriously than you because he/she takes the job more seriously than he/she takes you. After all, you can be replaced. In fact, you're replacing someone, and someone can replace you.
The job exists long after you're gone.

You can't always avoid working for such a boss, and sometimes it's worthwhile to put up with one, but it's usually best for your mental health to take a job that lets you sleep soundly at night. The right job is a very important part of your life, so don't rush into one you don't want to do, working for someone you hate, that you'll end up doing the rest of your life. And don't stick with one that drives your crazy.

So far as we we know, you only have one life -- and maybe one job -- so give it some thought.

There's always more time than you think, especially when you're young.

Having lived six decades, and having paid attention, I've learned some stuff that may prove valuable to you. Take it as it is, use what you want, and ignore the rest.