“Was it worth it?”

I have been asked this question by more people, involving more scenarios, than I care to mention.

I have done some incredibly stupid things on an incredible amount of occasions, with an incredibly poor sense of judgement. Given my propensity for doing stupid stuff, I am often asked the question,

“Was it worth it?”

I have been asked this by parents, teachers, doctors, lawyers, a couple of judges, and a handful of officers. My usual response is, a most pitiful, “No”. But if the truth be told, after the water has cooled off, and most of my stupid decisions are firmly rooted in the past (for the time being), it was worth it.

It was totally worth it.

Absolutely, it was all worth it.

I have taken risks. Risks that have come with all sorts of painful consequences, but there is a flip side to those consequences, and that flip side is experience. I could have experienced a lot of things with a lot less pain, and I could have done them with a lot less selfishness, but at the end of my poor judgement has been a high amount of awareness and appreciation for what I have.

One of my favorite quotes is…

“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience- well, that comes from poor judgement.”
–A.A. Milne

I have quoted that before, because I believe it to be true. I believe that I have written about this very thing before, but because of my history of poor decision making, much of my short-term memory is fried. It is rare that I start a blog and don’t ask myself if I have written these exact same words before. In reality, it probably matters very little. Most people probably aren’t paying attention….I know I certainly don’t.

I’m writing this now because I feel confident that someone reading this is sitting in the middle of the lonely, cold, darkness that comes with the consequence of a bad decision or two. Having sat in that hole, multiple times, for extended periods of time, I want you to know, with a little remorse, some awareness, and an honest desire to do better, the fog does lift and you can experience a great deal of growth because of doing something stupid.

It won’t hurt forever, if you don’t want it to. Chances are, you will look back on this someday and decide….

it was totally worth it.

Peace, Love, and all things Beef related,

Beefcake