When I was in high school, there were a few people I sometimes hung out with. We would sometimes skip classes, go to town, play pool, and have drinks. 

At that age, it felt good to rebel a bit. When we were together, we were loud and annoying. But we thought it was cool. 

I was talking to my best friend last week about how most of those cool guys ended up as losers. My friend Quincy grew up in a different city, but he also had the same type of friends.

Those guys started their adult lives on a downtrend. They didn’t go to college, took low-wage jobs, went to clubs every week, had unstable relationships, racked up debt, and so forth.

In life, things usually follow a trend. The trend is mostly going upward, and things are getting better, or it’s downward, and things only get worse. Even when things are moving sideways, it often feels like a downtrend because everything else around you seems to keep moving up.