I believe that in order to live your life, you need to be able to learn from your mistakes. I believe that in your life, you need to make mistakes and live. If you don't make mistakes, does that mean you're not trying? If you're not trying, then do you really have a purpose?

I know a lot of people my age that drink and smoke. They don’t care about what they do to themselves. They feel like nobody can stop them. The only time that they actually think about their actions and what damage they have caused is when they get caught or in trouble. Teens that are involved with the justice system are twice as likely to use substances than any other teen their age. I don't think that smoking and drinking is anything teens should experiment with because it can be very addicting. But if they did, they'd mostly get arrested if they were caught in school, or in a public area. In my opinion, for some teens this may be a necessary stepping stones in their life because if they are really wild and there life is out of hand, it might be a good awakening for them.

When I was in middle school, I was called a “punk”. I did want I wanted, whenever and wherever. I just had a very bad attitude, I never listened to any adults and I was a firm believer that how you treat me would be the way I'd treat you; so if you talked sassy to me I’d do exactly the same to you. In my eighth grade year, I got into a big fight. As a consequence, I was suspended from school; on top of that I also got arrested later that day. In the months after this incident I had to go to a special court called teen court. When I went there, I was given a sentence by a jury that was made up of my peers that I had to serve. This process with my sentence that I had to serve was prolonging and it cut into my practice and free time sometimes. This made me really think about what I've done and if it was really worth it to do it again (which it wasn’t) This is why I strongly agree that you can learn from your mistakes because I'm not the same person I once was three years ago. I learned from my wrong doing and I changed as a person.

“What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning- and some of them many times over- what do you find? That you can swim? Well- life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes,for there is no other way of leading how to live!” -Alfred Adler

This past year towards the ending of my junior year of my wrestling season my coach started to notice on the last week or two of the season that I was coming to practice late for most of the days of the week then he confronted  and said “Chasen you really need to shape up man, you’re gonna be a senior next year” My coach could have easily just not have said a word and just let me continue with the path I was on. But he didn't he saw that I was better than that and I had too much to lose. He couldn't just watch me just waste my time like that.I'm thankful for the second chance that my coach gave me. This was a reality check a blessing if you will that I needed to help shape myself up and realize that I was only hurry myself by coming to practice late. Making mistakes are okay, they're actually good in fact. What kind of person would you be if you didn't learn from your mistakes?