“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit that they are wrong.” -Francois de la Rochefoucauld. It takes a lot of maturity, mettle, and morale for a person to swallow their pride and admit that they are wrong. A person shows more dignity when admitting that they are at fault than they do in pretending to be innocent. I believe that when a person admits they are wrong it makes their relationships with others stronger.

One day after school, I was over my friend’s house when she realized that her brand-new iPod touch was missing. After searching high and low for it, we finally discovered it wedged under the seat of her father’s 2006 Toyota Corolla. Somehow a series of noticeably large cracks had appeared on my friend’s iPods’ screen. Naturally she blamed me. Knowing that I was innocent, I asked her how it could possibly have been my fault. She answered with, “You were using it in the car whale my dad was driving us to my house so you must have dropped it and left it under the seat were it creaked.”
Then I told her that, “I was using it in the car but your sister took it from me and I didn’t see it after that.”
My friend then found her little sister and asked her what happened and she said, “I took the iPod from her [me] and then you [my friend] took it from me.”
My Friend still continued to blame me even though I assured her that it was not me who left the iPod in the car. I was a little offended that she continued to claim that it was my fault when I was sure she knew it wasn’t. After a few hours, she admitted that she was wrong about the cracks being my oversight and that she knew it was her fault. I was jovial that she finally admitted that she was wrong to blame me. Because she admitted she had made a mistake in accusing me I was able to let the whole event be forgotten and not affront her like I might have otherwise done. Even though she was wrong at the beginning I admired her for admitting it and we became closer friends because when she came clean and said it was her, the entire incident became just a mistake easily forgotten.

It was an exceedingly sunny late spring afternoon, and my track team and I were supposed to jog down to the track for practice. Most of the team, (including myself), was feeling quite tired, lazy, and unmotivated that day so we decided to take our time and walk down to the track instead of jogging. A handful of the kids decided to do the right thing and follow the rules by running down to the track, but I was not one of those kids. The whole of us who were walking knew that our coach would be beyond livid when we finally made our appearance at practice, but that thought didn’t compel any of us to move any faster. Upon our twenty minutes late arrival, it is needless to say that our couch was anything but pleased. She demanded an explanation for why we had wasted her time, for she had been sitting at the track waiting for us. When none of us could supply her with a sufficient answer to her question, she decided to speak with each of our parents when they came to pick us up. Upon hearing what we had done, my mother insisted that I wrote my coach an apology. I was skeptical about an apology letter doing any good, but nevertheless, that night I sat down at my laptop and wrote her an email. I told her that we were wrong to disobey the rules, disrespect her, and waste her time. I told her how I was very sorry and would never do it again. She replied that she appreciated the letter and she was glad that even though she already knew I was wrong I had admitted it anyway. After that she treated me with more respect than she had before the incident had happened and it seemed that she thought higher of me for confessing that I was wrong.

Everyone does things wrong in their lives so there is no reason to try to hide it. When people admit they are wrong they are allowing themselves to grow as a person. I have the belief that owning up to ones mistakes is a key step in any form of a relationship with another person.