I Made a Mistake

Mistakes. They're unavoidable. I say this in the terms that you can't go through life without making them. Sure individually many can be avoided. You probably don't even realize how many things you do each day that causes you to miss making mistakes. For the ones you can't avoid, you have two options. Option 1: Learn from them. By learning how and why they happened and actually accepting fault, you will grow wiser and greatly lessen the chance of it happening again.

So what did I do? I made it look like a small meteor hit the front of my car. I rear-ended someone. It was at a stop-light and I did it from a stopped position so no one was hurt and the car I hit had barely any visible damage. It was strange how it all happened. My mind was wandering with many thoughts. Mostly about safe driving a near misses I had. I kid you not. That's what I was thinking about before my error. Here's how it went.

I was at a stop light in a right turn only lane. Only one car in front of me. The car in front of me had the clear and began to accelerate and make the right turn on red. The speed and the distance they drove convinced my mind that they were going to clear the intersection. I checked my left to make sure no cars were coming. None were. I turned my head to the middle to make sure no cars were turning left from the other direction and the moment I saw none were, I tapped the gas...and heard a thunk. My heart sank. How in the world did that happen? Two reasons. The first is that the driver in front of me second-guessed themselves and stopped beyond the white line and slightly in my blind spot from the right from where I was looking. The second is that I didn't fully check to make sure they were gone. And that second reason alone makes it totally my fault. 

My mind was going nuts. Are the other people okay? How much damage did I do? How much is this going to cost? What's the emotional status going to be of the people in the other car? Why did a day that was finally going well for me turn bad so fast? 

I stepped out of my car and looked at the damage. It was more than I expected, but thankfully, my headlights went unscathed and I could still open my hood. The other driver got out and didn't say anything. I asked if they were okay. They looked at the damage on their car and then on mine. The driver then made a phone call. After the call, the driver looked at their car again and told me it's okay. I couldn't believe what I just heard so I asked them if they were sure. The driver inspected the damage again which was simply a small dent with a mark. They told me it was fine again and I asked if they wanted my information or anything. They didn't feel like it was worth the trouble and that I had made an honest mistake. The driver said "God Bless", got back in their car and drove off.

While it was still a bitter pill to swallow, it was also a small blessing. The people in the car I hit could've torn my head off. They could've contacted the insurance company and make it sound worse than it was. There were so many things that could've gone wrong. But in the end, I end up not getting hurt and hurting no one, I was left with a bruised car and a bruised ego. And mercy was shown to me. 

I debated writing this post because when I look back through these, I didn't want to remember this incident. But part of learning from one's mistakes is knowing why they happened so one doesn't repeat that process. From now on, you better believe that no matter how far or fast a car in front of me moves, I'm going to take more time to check and make sure they are completely gone. It also shows that no matter how much experience I have at something, I'm still human, which means I am flawed and prone to making mistakes. More will come, but I can better myself now, learn from past errors, and be better prepared to face what's next, or maybe, just maybe, avoid a catastrophic one.