Mistakes

I found a quote today written by Elbert Hubbard (who's he?):

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

This is me. I'm constantly worrying and fearing that I'm going to make mistakes. It's not a fun way to live. It keeps me from trying things, it holds me back. And, does this keep me from making mistakes? No, I still make them. I wish I didn't fear failure so much. I don't feel like I live up to my potential. I try to learn from my mistakes, because that's all we can do, right?

I make plenty of little mistakes, like setting our sprinkler system to go off at 6am but it went off today at 6pm instead. Oops. I'm hoping the HOA nazis don't notice. People are fanatical about water schedules here, and our neighbors haven't been the most welcoming.

I make big mistakes, like forgetting to pay an insurance bill and losing auto insurance for a month. Oops. Turns out they punish you if you don't have insurance and make you pay even more once you sign back up. (And this even though we didn't have wrecks or speeding tickets on our records!)

Looking back on my life, there are decisions I wish I could change. One of them involved going off to college. I wish I had choosen a different one than the one I went to. I applied to four colleges (and got into all four), but I chose to attend SMU, the one that my boyfriend was going to, my best friend was going to, had the most people I knew going to, etc. At the time, I thought I wanted to go there because it looked fun but I think I needed that security as well. It was a hard time in my life. My parents were separating and my little sister was leaving for boarding school, and I felt like my family was falling apart.

In retrospect, it was a bad plan. My best friend and I decided to be roommates. Bad idea. We had a huge falling out about a month or so into school, and it ruined our relationship. We didn't speak for years, we weren't involved in each other's weddings and births of our first children.

I wonder what life would have been like if I had gone to Trinity University instead. Maybe I could have finished my degree and gone into a career in medicine. Would I be happier? Would I be more successful? Who would I be? Would I have my children? I can't imagine my life without them.

Do I regret my decisions? No, I can't, because it led me to where I am now, with my husband and two wonderful children. Has the journey been tough? Yes. Do I feel like I know who I am and what I need to do with my life now? No, I don't. I think I lost myself somewhere along the way. But, I can't regret it. It's made me who I am now, for better or worse. I can only grow from this point onward.

So, if I can stop fearing every step I take foward, I think I could actually get somewhere. I've made mistakes, and I've learned from them. I know I'll make more, but that just makes life interesting, right? I keep telling myself that.

What mistakes have you made (big or small)?

What was your first job?

When I was fifteen, I started working for the first time. This is not counting babysitting or getting paid by my parents to do stuff around the house, because I did lots of that. I was ready to start working the summer after I turned 15, but you had to be 16 to get a paying job in Texas, or something like that. So, I signed up to be a volunteer at the Children's Hospital in Austin, Texas.

I loved it! I had to wear a white button down shirt and white pants with a pink checked apron. I helped nurses out with patients and re-stocked items and answered phones. I enjoyed the atmosphere (although it is hard seeing sick kids) and it felt good to go somewhere and do something important. It was my first real experience working. I learned to wash my hands a lot and to sing "Yankee Doodle Dandee" slowly to make sure I had washed them long enough. Amazingly I knew the words to that song because I had to learn it when I took piano lessons. Now I think they recommend you sing "Happy Birthday" twice, which is better because everyone knows the words to that song.

Now, fast forward about 12 years or so, and I found myself once again volunteering at the Children's Hospital. This time I was a married 27 yr old college student with two kids. I had decided to go pre-med, and I wanted to be around medicine and make sure that's what I wanted to do. I worked in the pediatric ICU, and was mainly put to work answering phones. I spent free time studying flashcards for my medical terminology class at the University of Texas and just soaked up the medical talk around me. It was a very rewarding experience, even though I wasn't getting paid and I could only work for four hours, one day a week.

Two times volunteering, two different times in my life, and I'd do it again if I had the time.

What was your first job?