Throughout a person’s lifetime, they will make plenty of mistakes. Some are honest, simple mistakes, where others are far worse and can result in a serious consequence. Although you make plenty in your lifetime, you will not hear many people say that they made a good mistake or your mistake resulted in a good thing later on in life. Well this mistake that I made was not a very serious one where I was going to get into trouble, but after doing it, I am actually glad it happened. Looking back on it today, it taught me a lesson that I can carry on for the rest of my life, even though it was a small mistake.

Last quarter in school, I took a gym class. Throughout the nine week, we did various amounts of activities from playing all different games to lifting in the weightroom a few days a week. When I made my favorite mistake, we happened to be playing a game called speed ball. Speedball is a up tempo game with nets on both sides of the court. There are two teams and when you have the ball, you can only take three steps with it. The objective of the game is to score more than the other team by throwing the ball in the net. My favorite mistake happened to be while we were playing this game.

If I remember right, we were only in the first week of the quarter so it was one of the first team games that we had played since we started the class. Before we started the game, our teacher was explaining the rules of the game and how to play. This was when things got a little confusing. I did not happen to listen to all of the directions to the game because I thought I knew them all. Anyway, we were only about five minutes into the game when it happened. I had just gotten the ball going towards the opponent's net, then I quickly got rid of the ball due to the three step rule. I then got the ball right back, but not before jumping up and getting it because the ball was high up in the air. I got the ball, but I got pushed on the way down, and our teacher blew the whistle so I got a free shot. Seconds later, I was at the line hoping to score. I thought the options were we could kick it or throw it in order to try to score. I chose to kick it and that was not the right decision. Right as I kicked it, I heard people yelling including the teacher saying Kicking was not allowed. But at that time and point, that was not the only thing that I was thinking about. My leg, thigh area, instantly hurt after I kicked it. After the ball, and the other players, started to run the other way, hoping to score, I stayed back, kind of limping. My leg was really hurting and I was trying to stretch it out, hoping it was just a cramp. After the pain not going away, I just sat out for the rest of the game. When I was doing that, I was thinking to myself, if I were to just listen to the directions and pay attention, I would have not gotten hurt. I would have known not to kick the ball and just throw it. After that class was done, it was still hurting pretty bad, and I knew I had done something to it. That night at hockey, it was very tough to skate with, especially trying to turn. It hurt the most when you were to put pressure on it.

For the next month or so, I went and saw a trainer everyday after school so he could stretch it out. It still hurt but I could see little progress everyday, which was a good thing. I had to miss a few practices for hockey here and there, just because the pain was so bad and rest was a good thing in order for my thigh to heal quicker. It turned out to be a muscle pull, but it hurt for a month and a half or so.

This was my favorite mistake I have ever made. I learned from this that if you don’t follow the directions, it can really come back and bite you. In my case, by not following the directions, I happened to hurt my leg, but if I did what I was supposed to do, nothing would have happened. From that day on, I realized on how important it is to follow the directions that you are given.