There are many things that I did in my youth that I regret, many mistakes made, many roads that I shouldn’t have gone down. It’s hard to have to go back and right the wrongs, more often than not, we cannot do it. Sometimes, we have no choice but to leave the wrongs the way they are and allow them to provide for us a mark, a lesson mark, from which we can learn not to do them again.
The first mistake I regret is caring about what everyone else thought of me. The opinions of others have a tendency to weigh us down, big-time. We can get sucked into a vacuum of their sweltering thoughts of us, causing us to lose control of who we are and what we are called to be. This was a constant battle for me, like quicksand, and it was hard to escape.
The second mistake was not being authentic. This actually stems from the first mistake, in the sense that the fear of others’ opinions swayed me to become something I was not. It pressured me into being fake, even lying so that people would “accept” me. Everywhere I went, I was tempted to put on a facade, to hide the struggling man inside. I learned that if we are true to ourselves, this would in turn, cause us to be true to others, allowing trust to build in relationships, and integrity to become a part of our character.
The third mistake was not watching my finances. I would recklessly spend money on things I didn’t need, like constantly going to the convenience store to buy a Gatorade and some candy. Or buying extra clothes, or getting gifts for some fancy girl. I learned quickly that there were a lot of things that I could do without.
I learned that work was a very valuable thing and unless one was lucky or blessed, almost nothing can be attained without work of some sort. Life would have been easier if I would have spent time to know my worth. It is way better to spend time being real, because in doing this, a man can discover who his real friends are, who actually cares about him. And if he stops to think before he acts, he can prevent a lot of foolishness and setbacks along the way.
