Josephine Strecker, 12
North Kirkwood Middle School, Kirkwood, MO

We all make mistakes. Most of us remember our mistakes. Others don’t. For those of us who do, we most likely learned something from it. Learning from our mistakes is a part of life. It’s not a bad thing when you make a mistake. Yeah it’s not good, but it’s not bad either. The lessons we learn from our mistakes are what make mistakes good. When we learn from our mistakes, it makes us a better person in life.

In fact, pretty much everyone you know has at least made one mistake in his or her life. I have made countless mistakes in my thirteen years of life. From at least half of those, I have learned a lesson. One example of a mistake I made was when I was nine. I stole something from a store. At the time it seemed all right but now, even after all these years, I still feel guilty. It is like a shadow following me around everywhere I go. It seems like every time I turn around that toy is there, starring back at me, as if to ask me “why” and “why did you do it?” I’ve regretted the day for almost four years now.

I learned a valuable lesson from my mistake: never steal anything. If you want something, buy it or wait for a birthday or something. What ever you do, never steal anything, or you will regret it for the rest of your life. There are plenty of lessons you can learn from mistakes. For example, never touch a hot stove. Never stay up late on a school night. Never lie. Never do anything your parents wouldn’t like. Of course that last one only applies if you’re still living with your parents.

Making mistakes is just another big part of life. We need mistakes in our life in order to become a better person. Also remember we all make mistakes. Mistakes are like friends, parents, or siblings. You have to learn to live with them or things will never work out.

Cary Tieng, 17
Road to Success Academy, Santa Clarita, CA

For being seventeen years old, I have seen a lot and been through a lot. I had to live through my father’s deportation, my sister’s cancer, and my best friend’s death. These events led me to my life and the decisions I made. I made careless mistakes, left and right. In spite of the fact that I embrace my mistakes, no matter how hard or easy, I still seem to repeat them. My biggest mistake was getting involved in the juvenile justice system and coming to a camp for incarcerated juvenile delinquents.

I could go on and on about what my mom did wrong, what my judge thought, or how my family treated me. However, landing in a place like this, when I was seventeen years old, was a result of a series of bad choices. It took me three years to realize it was not my mom, my judge, my friends, my family—it was I. I was the one in the wrong and no one else. Although I suffered a lot of pain and frustration, I have never been so glad as I am today that I put myself in this hard situation. I used to be naïve, manipulative, cunning and mean. To be quite honest, I am not even sure who I was. Never in a million years did I think someone like me could change so dramatically.

I am not someone who runs the streets or sells drugs, but before my camp program, my life was spiraling out of control.  Once I came to camp, my eyes lit up like gold. I realized that places like Camp Kenyon Scudder do not only punish girls like me but also rehabilitate and enable us to rejoin the community. Once I got hold of every program I could get my hands on there, all hell broke loose! I was on a spree; I wanted so many transitional programs. I met as many people as I could who might help me with school and jobs when I got out. I started to be more open-minded and actually started listening to people I should have listened to in the first place—and stopped listening to people I should not. I was introduced to multiple people who had so much knowledge on college, jobs, wages, and even technology. My world opened up to new opportunities so magnificent and inspiring that I began to have hope.

In conclusion, I have made plenty of mistakes, even the ones that are life changing, but I have learned to embrace them and learn from them. It is my belief that even more life-altering mistakes are heading my way, but I will hug and kiss every single one because I know for a fact that something good is going to come out of it. You know how the saying goes, “It is always darkest before the dawn.”