Puddles
My sister and I always loved to try new things, and a lot of the times these new things we tried would get us into some trouble. So one day it had just finished raining and we went out and walked up to our tennis courts. There were huge puddles on the tennis court, and we both wanted to try rain water. We proceeded to bend over and lick the puddles, drinking in the dirty taste of water. Apparently my dad spotted us and came outside screaming. Neither of us were satisfied with only have a couple of drops and bent over to drink the puddles some more. My dad came out and gave us a pretty good spanking for what we did. Even though it hurt, getting to satisfy that urge, at least in this situation, was well worth it. We dared not go back out there and lick those puddles once more; crossing my father again was beyond something I was willing to do.
• For the past two summers my friend and I have been building an addition to his grandfather’s house. Everything from stumping the trees to roofing the house we did. That doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean that we were experts and knew anything about what we were doing. His grandfather would give us the materials we needed, tell us the basics of what needed to be done, and send us on our way. I would say about 90% of the things we tried for the first time we did completely wrong, but we learnt from those experiences. We tried to put on the drip edge a good four different times, and even though we never got it right, my friend’s grandfather would just laugh and tell us we would get it right next time. Even though we were wasting time and materials he wanted us to learn how to fix our problem, and he trusted us to make sure it was right. It turned out to be an experience that taught me a lot about how to approach problems and how to embrace your mistakes. By the end of the summer we would look at a situation and see what would make the most sense, we would read the directions and put things in place before making their placement permanent. It turned out to be a much better technique and by the end of the summer we were much more effective in what we were doing.
• By licking those puddles I learnt the consequences of your actions. Working for my friend’s grandfather I learnt the importance of analyzing a problem before you just jump in and make the damage you do permanent. Mistakes are a necessary part of life, but when you make mistakes it should not be ignored, they should be embraced in order to learn something; to learn something about yourself, the people around you, or about fitting into society, you need to be able to step back and learn something. You may sometimes just want to bend over and lick those puddles, but you better be prepared to get wet.