George Bernard Shaw once said, “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” I came to this realization by experiencing a moment of impact that reshaped my perspective on life forever. For most people, these moments are influenced by outside forces of awe-inspiring individuals, but for me, my cousin was that outside force, and her bad decisions launched the impact into place.

As I looked around, I saw the same familiar surroundings as I did a year ago. I watched the little boy, too young to realize where he was, hug his mom goodbye as the officer took her away.  Then I returned my attention back to my cousin who had been rambling on about how bad the food was. Although I visited her the last time she was in here, I still wasn’t used to seeing her in a jumpsuit. She continued to complain about her living arrangements and apologized to my mom, who was like a mother to her as well, for her involvement in drugs, but my mom was not having any of it. By witnessing my cousin’s downfall, I realized that after you make a mistake and deal with the consequences of it, you cannot make that same mistake again because, in actuality, it would not be a mistake at all, it would simply be a choice made on your own free will. What people don’t realize is that they have to learn from each mistake and take responsibility for repeated ones, otherwise the people around you will eventually get tired of your choices. This realization has impacted me to think about which decisions are really worth making, and, when I do make a mistake, I will grow from it instead of repeating it again and again.

Unless I learn from my mistakes each time and mature, being in the top four percent of my class, inducted into National Honor Society, voted team captain of my soccer team, and doing continuous volunteer work will mean nothing. Because I don’t want to risk my accomplishments that I have already made and plan to make in my future, I intend to never repeat past mistakes and, instead, correct them so I can grow as an individual. The success of my future is too crucial for me to throw away just because I would rather repeat foolish mistakes.
My cousin holds an important role in my life, not because she made the right decisions but because she chose to make the wrong ones. My belief is that our actions and decisions are a reflection of influenced interpretations of past experiences, and that is why this experience will be beneficial to me. I will interpret this impact in such a way that I can only succeed in my choices.

Moments of impact, whether they are influenced by a great muse or someone merely capable of choosing the right path, their ripples of effects are determined by my interpretation of them. That is why I choose to take advantage of these effects so that my future will never become a path of repeated mistakes.