Lessons learned
When I was twelve-years-old I was very involved in my church youth group. We had planned a spaghetti dinner as a service for a family in our ward. All the girls made dinner and dressed up in italian style clothing to serve the dinner. My assignment was to bring a salad. I arrived at the dinner excited for the evening. I had spent a long time getting ready. I was enthusiastic about the clothing I was wearing, but I completely forgot to bring the salad. I can’t remember why I forgot it. I can’t remember what excuses I attempted to offer. I do remember clearly the adult leader scolding me and telling me that my excuses didn’t matter, what mattered was that there was no salad when there needed to be one. She also spoke about taking responsibility for mistakes rather than trying to excuse ourselves from them.
I have never forgotten that even. It was one of those small moments that truly shape a life. Ever since that day I have been reluctant to offer excuses for my failures. I try to accept responsibility for things-gone-wrong rather than to dodge it. Sometimes I take this too far and blame myself for things which aren’t truly my doing. I’ve also learned that the purpose of an excuse is to make people more understanding of the failure, not to deny responsibility Many times as I take responsibility I have a fleeting memory of that youth group leader and I am grateful to her. She taught me what I’d never learned from my parents although they tried to teach it often.
These last few days Kiki has been learning a hard lesson about getting work done when it is due rather than letting it pile up. I’ve had to be very firm and not allow her to play. We still have today and tomorrow to get through before it is too late. If we can emerge from these exhausting days with a lesson learned, then they will have been worth it. Perhaps today’s misery will prevent misery and bad grades in high school. I hope so, but I can never tell if the lesson that my child is learning is the one that I intended to teach. I can never tell if we are having a defining moment that the child will draw upon time and again or if it is a moment that will roll right out of memory and be forgotten.