I strongly believe that people learn from their mistakes. We all make mistakes; some are tiny, some can scar us for life. What we learn from our errors, how we take a negative and turn it into a positive is how we grow into a better people. If we remember our mistakes we can continue to learn from them from different vantage points as we grow older. Our misadventures can help us become better later in life. How a person changes or improves from their mistakes shows his or her character.
My friend and I were out in the woods on very hot and humid summer afternoon. We had free run of the farms, estates, and forests. We chose a path we had never taken and found ourselves in front of a big and what looked to be a very old and broken down garage. We looked inside the garage to see if there was anything in side and there wasn’t. We wanted to get inside, thinking maybe it could be a new hang out spot. We began to pick up rocks off the ground, throwing them at the windows and breaking the tiny glass panes. This garage was very old so one window was divided into 12 little square panes; it was a challenge to hit the small targets. It was thrilling to hear the glass shatter. We’d only been at for about five minutes when, out the corner of my eye, I saw a car moving through the trees. I turn my head and notice a police patrol car slowly come to a stop with its lights flashing away.
At that time so many thoughts ran through my mind, I was so young and clueless about what to do. My friend started to run away and was yelling at me to do the same. I just stood there as if I was frozen to the ground. Two police officers stepped out of their car and walked towards me, I had a rock in my hand and was too stunned to even drop the evidence. There was no denying that I had broken the windows. Here I was, 7 years old sitting in the back of a cop car. I stared straight away at the seat in front of me, asking myself what the hell I had just done. My friend and I were escorted home and handed over to our parents.
I kept my head down looking at the floor, embarrassed to have my father open the door to see me standing next too two police officers. Once my parents were informed about what had happened, I could see how disappointed they were in me. They had given me freedom to play with a friend without supervision and I was returning their trust by being brought home by the cops.
Every time I drive by the woods I remember that day when I learned, which in my mind, the biggest lesson of all, was to have respect. It wasn’t my property and by breaking someone’s garage windows I didn’t have respect for the owner nor the owner’s property. From this mistake I have learnt to be respected of people, their belongings and their feelings. I learnt respect from one small mistake, but by remembering it as I grew older, other areas of respect occurred to me. Sometimes a mistake can be a good thing.