Straight from the Narwhal's Mouth - January

The Mistaken Narwhal

--- Steven Albers

     

     Another short (or painfully long, if you would prefer) year has come to a close. These early January days are usually a time for people to reflect on themselves, and ask those important questions: “Where am I in my life?”, “Have I accomplished all those things I’ve said I would over the years?”, “Did I remember to order pizza for that party tonight?” etc. All too often, these questions don’t have the best answers. We keep making mistakes year after year, and day after day. Even though that saying says we can learn from our failures, how many of us really do learn from them?

     There are a couple different kinds of mistakes people can make. The most beneficial, perhaps, are those that stick with us forever. Remember the first time you put your hand on a hot stove or on a tray fresh out of the oven? Remember the first time you sat down before checking to see if the toilet seat was there? Mistakes like these are the best things we can do for ourselves at a young age, and keep us out of a lot of unnecessary trouble later on. Sadly, not all mistakes stick with us like that. As much as we see people failing all around us, sometimes we can’t help but try it ourselves. Things like repeatedly stubbing your toe on the top stair, trusting a sibling when they say “trust me,” and even dieting (maybe that’ll be a topic for another discussion) are little mistakes we keep making, despite the fact that we know better.

     The final kind of mistake is one that we don’t even make ourselves; it’s those mistakes we see other people make, and vow that we won’t follow in their footsteps. It sounds easy enough, yet why do so many people keep messing things up left and right? It’s obvious how miserable those girls on "16 and Pregnant" lives’ are, yet teen pregnancy is still an awful reality. People see how destructive smoking is, yet it’s still an epidemic. It’s great when we can overcome those mistakes we make, but for how long humans have been around, it’s hard to hope that humanity will stop making these mistakes anytime soon.