Paying For My Mistakes – An essay on personal responsibility.

paying for my mistakes by David Lewis as children we really have the insight or understanding to fully appreciate the extent of our impact on the world around us in our young minds the world simply revolves around us operating independently without our involvement people places and things remain static and we are incapable of affecting major changes in any way this world came crashing down for me at the age of seven when I caused my first automobile accident my friend had recently completed a classic car model and naturally I wanted to take it for a test drive on this kitchen counter tragically the car plunged off the edge and was totaled when it hit the floor luckily nobody was injured in the few seconds after the accident my happy carefree existence was changed forever when I realized that my friend expected me to somehow resolve the situation I was stumped me I was only seven it wasn’t my fault these reckless people hadn’t installed guardrails on their counters what were they thinking but there was no escaping the situation I knew something would have to be done so i went to the two people i knew had the ultimate power to solve anything my parents my parents both had jobs and therefore a fortune in spare cash surely they would replace the car and everything would be fine unfortunately another fundamental truth of childhood is that parents can sometimes be unreasonable and unfair for no reason just to be mean my father explained that while they had the money available I would not learn anything from the experience if I didn’t personally invest the time and efforts to make things right obviously these people didn’t understand basic logic I didn’t have any personal money or independent wealth otherwise I would be buying model cars for myself they had all the power and control in the relationship but I suspected my friend wouldn’t care he just wanted his model car replaced for the first time in my life I was indebted to another person with nobody else to bail me out and nobody to blame except myself that young age I understood that guard rails are not standard equipment on kitchen counters there was only one solution I had to run away I didn’t know where I would go but it would be somewhere I could make a fresh start and I would never tell anyone about what i did I also resolved that I would never ever play with anyone’s toys even if they offered the wrist was just too great why didn’t anyone warn me to be careful I’m sure I never heard that advice ever before that day as I was silently plotting my escape my father proposed an alternate solution through a series of odd jobs around the house I could earn the money to replace the car it sounded just crazy enough to work I would raise the money buy a new model car for my friend and act cool about it like I had everything under control the whole time nobody would suspect anything as it turned out it totally worked I was able to handle the situation completely on my own without assistance from anyone else I knew then that I would always be free to destroy others property without any long-term consequences and as long as I made good on the damages people would still want to be my friend although I never forgave my parents for refusing to help me in any way I did learn two things first taking personal responsibility can be difficult at times but it’s also very rewarding knowing that you can handle situations yourself when you have to second I learned that parents can sometimes exploit their own children for cheap labor forcing them to perform domestic work for much less than the federally guaranteed minimum wage to this day I still don’t understand why my parents would use this opportunity to take advantage of me especially in my obvious time of need nevertheless I persevered and overcame and most importantly I did it all on my own you