No. Todays’ blog is not about my obsession with Britney Spears. Sorry for those of you I just disappointed. Today I’m talking about us messing up. We’ve all done it, and if you think you haven’t–get off my blog right now.
To quote Alexander Pope, “To err is human.” Effing things up is what makes us who we are. We’re not perfect, and you shouldn’t trust anyone who claims to be. Making mistakes makes people (except the ones we’ve pissed off) like us more, because it brings us all down to the same level.
Maybe your biggest mistake to date is stealing a piece of candy from the Brach’s candy display at the grocery store (I KNOW you know what I’m talking about). Or maybe you’re a hit man. Regardless, our mistakes aren’t what define us–what we do AFTER we make them is what matters. So below you’ll find a few mistakes that I’ve made, and the lessons I learned from them.
Mistake #1
Age: 10
Incident: Subject was on bike ride with mother and stuck her right foot into the spokes of her front tire. Bike came to a halt and subject came to rest on the ground with no major injuries.
Lesson Learned: Don’t stick body parts into places they don’t belong.
Mistake #2
Age: 16
Incident: Subject was in the backseat of a moving vehicle smoking and threw cigarette out the window. Car was pulled over and subject was given a ticket for possession of tobacco under the legal age.
Lesson Learned: Nothing good happens in the backseat.
Mistake #3
Age: 16
Incident: Subject was driving with a cigarette when the cherry fell off. Subject maneuvered shirt out the window to get the cherry off and drove into a drainage ditch. Subject lied to parents, telling them accident occurred swerving trying to avoid a child on a bike.
Lesson Learned: Lies that involve fake children on fake bikes are easy to see through.
Mistake #4
Age: 17
Incident: Subject was at a party where drinking was occurring. Party was busted and subject retreated to upstairs bedroom closet. Subject was located and given a ticket for possession of alcohol under the legal age by the same officer who issued the ticket for possession of tobacco. Subject didn’t have cigarettes at the time of the alcohol ticket because they had been lost in the upstairs closet.
Lesson Learned: Sometimes good things do happen in closets.
Mistake #5
Age: 17
Incident: Subject stopped seeing a boy because he was too nice.
Lesson Learned: Nice guys finish last when girls are douchebags.
Mistake #6
Age: 18
Incident: Subject was attending college, was at a party, and received another possession of alcohol ticket. This time subject was arrested and taken to the police station, which the subject still doesn’t get.
Lesson Learned: Being in the wrong place at the wrong time sucks.
Mistake #7
Age: 18
Incident: Subject was driving mother’s minivan and allowed people to drink and smoke in it. Upon it’s return the next morning, subject was questioned as to why it smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke.
Lesson Learned: Carry air freshener.
Mistake #8
Age: 21
Incident: Subject had partaken in “Any Coin, Any Drink” night at a local watering hole. Subject decided to drive and was promptly pulled over and cited with an OWI. Subject burst into tears and was taken to jail.
Lesson Learned: There’s no crying in jail.
Mistake #9
Age: 23
Incident: Subject had been recruited to be the college mascot at a pep rally, but had stayed out too late the night before. Subject was a half hour late and made to look like a fool every time a child pulled its tail.
Lesson Learned: Don’t get into a mascot costume dehydrated.
Mistake #10
Age: 24
Incident: Subject attended AAA baseball game with one of the nicest guys ever and blew him off the next day.
Lesson Learned: Seven years after Mistake #4, subject is still a douchebag.
Okay. Now hold on. Obviously, that was a humorous depiction on my mistakes and the lessons I’ve learned. For example, some may not know that after my OWI I went to alcohol rehabilitation classes and didn’t drink for seven months. Some of you may not know that after Mistake #3, I got kicked out of National Honor Society and bawled. So my mistakes, like yours, have absolutely affected me.
I’ve done plenty of things I’m not proud of, but I still like to think I’m an inherently good person. Like all of you–in some way, shape, or form–I’ve lied, I’ve stolen, I’ve cheated, and I’ve hurt people by doing all of these things. But you know what else I’ve done? I’ve said I’m sorry to those people and to my knowledge, most of them don’t hold my mistakes against me because they love me. Ends up that in spite of it all, most days I love me too.
We can’t go back and unwrite our wrongs–wishing we’d chosen Option B just isn’t an option. So you embrace the things you’ve done–if you hurt someone, apologize. Disgusted in something you did? Come clean and don’t do it again.
The beauty of our lives is that if we so choose, we can wake up every day with a clean slate. So don’t sit here and wallow about things that happened years ago–all you can change now is your future. I just hope for your sake your future doesn’t involve any mascot costumes.
Life As We Know It 