"It wasn't my fault."
"I didn't mean for it to turn out like this."
How often we hear words like those in our everyday life. And my response is, "So what?"
Actions have consequences and intentions may have little to do with them. In our victim-focused culture, this is hard medicine to swallow. It doesn't compute and it's not politically correct. Many of us want grace without justice. We need to belly up to the bar and face the consequences of our good intentions run amok. We've hurt people, we've failed to really, honestly apologize and failed to make amends. And the irony is that we ourselves remain imprisoned as a result. It takes time for the results of our actions to arrive. And because of the time gap between action and consequence, we are apt to become complacent or forget that what we do now determines what the future will bring.
We can also overlook the significance of small actions. Don't! For just as a single spark can lead to a raging forest fire, the smallest act can have devastating consequences. When I was in 2nd grade my teachers wanted to pass me to the next grade because I was not a trouble kid or was I. All the students that were in my class would be doing class work, home work, and test and listening to the teachers teach about a lesson in Math, English, and Reading. While practicing to draw, I became Pablo Picasso and creating a master piece on every paper. And on some days I became a bear around winter time and would hibernate for a class period. The result of me not doing the work and not putting any effort. I was held back in 2nd grade and had the hardest time learn anything in school for the next few years. And now years later and am still struggle with Math, Reading, and English.
I hate being lied to. Short of violence, it is the worst thing you can do to me. The reason that I hate lies is because, like you, I wish to navigate carefully through life, and to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me, you know your position but you have given me false data which obscures mine. But when I was about 14 or 15 lied to my mother all time about different things. I lied about skipping school, going to the store, not realizing that every time I would lie that I was hurt her in some way. The worst one ever was when I was 14 in junior high and my mother let me going to a junior high basketball game that my girl friend at the time was playing. I went to the game and came home around 8:00pm that was a good time to make it home, but what I did after that was the icing on the cake. I asked my mother to go to the store around the corner. She replied yes but come back home right after you leave the store. So I left the house with other intentions my friends was waiting at the 3rd house from mine and they had 3 girls with them. One of the girls that were with them was my ex-girlfriend that I still had feelings for or what people call back in the day’s puppy dog love. So we all went walk around do thing only god knows. While we were having the time of our live the time was pass by like lunch time traffic on Nicholasville rd. And when I made it home it was 11:00pm and it was like I walk in hell and was cornered by a raging hell hound. And was caged for a month of my life time with no TV, phone, games and the only light I would see is when I walked to school and home. As a result People who invest the time, money, or even care, People who lie have stolen these things from them because they obtained them with false information.
As time goes on I was 16 when I made the biggest mistake of my life. Because when in life most people act before thinking. And with the actions that other people make like your parents, friends, family makes have a reaction on you. 16 years old I joined a gang because I thought that I would belong to something or wanted to feel like I was someone. Joining the gang it was like having a large family that no matter what happen we were there for each other and would die for each other. We the talk around town, school, the mall, basically we just misunderstood kids. We didn’t have anyone to tell us the truth that we were just some kids that was heading down a path that you were guaranteed to die or see each other pass away. And what I was into would cost me my life or my family. I was the one they called a lost cause I fight, smoke weed, carried guns and just didn’t care for anyone. But now I look back and see that If had not move when I was 17 I would have been like most of the guys that was in the gang dead or lock up for life till this day. It would seem that a human’s action does not deserve praise or blame by reason of its being good or evil. And yet natural things are deserving of praise or blame .Therefore a human action does not deserve blame, by reason of its being evil or sinful; and, consequently, neither does it deserve praise, by reason of its being good.
