I Am Afraid To Make Mistakes.

         I don't think I'm the only one who can agree with the title, but I feel it is something worth noticing. Since we we're kids we've heard a lot of don'ts, and what generation hasn't, but this time around we have visuals, and videos, and media to show us just how bad it is... or exaggerate it.
         It almost seemed like everything was exaggerated. Like how the entirety of our younger lives we're told we can be anything, but the moment we hit middle school it's all of a sudden we must get good grades  or our G.P.As will be to low to go to school and be what we want to be. Imagine in your head the kid in your class that never seemed to care, maybe this kid dropped out or became apart of the wrong crowd. Can you imagine the moment they realized they couldn't keep up their grades, the moment they realized that maybe they can't be what they want when they grow up. From their perspective why not just give up and throw school out the window and try their hand somewhere somewhere else. Not as frightening, but what about the first time some of you got a sub par grade. For some of you you had thoughts of parents punishment, or a worried thoughts about future school applications, what ever your first thoughts we're you reacted like you touched a hot stove, because you made a mistake.
         Other examples include the importance of abstinence(some of you protected sex) and how not doing these things would lead to horrid diseases and indefinitely a baby that would ruin your hopes and dreams, or not letting boys be boys or kids be kids, because bullying is the devil, and it's not just messing around guys, you have to be incredibly sensitive to people's feelings so they don't come to school with a gun or commit suicide. So now a comment or slip of the tongue could lead to a suspension in school.
               In my life as an infantryman the most important thing to have is quick reaction. The worst decision is no decision, so hesitation is real bad, but I am also told that if I mess up I'll get my limbs blown off, end up like the soldiers that we watch get beheaded, or put our buddy through that. No wonder a lot of us freeze up and hesitate out in the field, with those consequences on the line, what else would your reaction be.
          What I'm getting at is these things occupy a cornerstone in my formative years as a kid, and I am terrified of making a mistake. I am terrified to think outside the rules and see something different.  In school I am terrified to do a project in a different way, because I"M AFRAID TO TURN IN THE WRONG THING, EVEN IF IT"S GOLD, because our formative years are full of linear assignments and harsh consequences for not doing the right thing.
         I think we all need to take some risks sometimes, because the biggest pit fall of any peoples is to get to stuck in what is the correct thing to do, we can't lose our ability to think outside of the box, and I'm terrified to move outside of the box, because who knows what the consequences are, but I know the worst consequence of all is to end up an ignorant, boring, colorless person, and than to look around and only be able to see other ignorant, boring and colorless people.