The Principal's Message

Each month Zach writes a message to post on his principal's website at school. This month he wrote a particularly excellent message that I think deserves a wider audience than just his school community.

It's a message that can be applied to fitness, nutrition, being a high school principal...and to life in general. (And let it be known that his busybody, English major wife did not touch this post prior to its publish.)

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Reality Check

“Sooner or later (turns out later comes sooner than you thought), your bad behavior will ruin your life.” Tony Horton

“I made a mistake.” “I knew it was wrong, but I did not mean to do it.” “It was an accident.” I hear these phrases or ones similar to them fairly regularly from students. My response is almost always the same. “No, you made a poor choice.”

Or perhaps you can recall a time when you were saying “I made a mistake, okay! So? Everybody makes mistakes!” If the mistake was deliberate, was it really a mistake, or a poor choice? Calling it a mistake helps to absolve the person of some or all of the accountability for the wrongdoing. Intentional unacceptable behavior is not a mistake, but instead a matter of poor choice.

Facing reality means not making excuses for poor choices. For a moment, let’s compare the terms mistake and choice. According to the dictionary, a mistake is “an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.” For example, to misspell a word in an assignment for your English class is a mistake. The misspelled word was not intentional. Mistakes are inadequate performance, not unacceptable behavior. 

A choice is defined as “the right, power, or opportunity to choose; option.” It involves some forethought and intent. Speeding is a poor choice, not a mistake. If you hold a driver’s license, then you can read a speedometer and a speed limit sign. To curse at someone is a deliberate choice. You can choose what words come out of your mouth. In these examples, the behavior is a matter of choice, not inadequate performance. You are accountable for your behavior because your behavior is a choice.

It’s pretty obvious there is a difference in the meanings of these two words, yet many young adults confuse them. We make choices every day that keep us from being who we want to be physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Many people attempt to label these choices as mistakes. Mistakes are made constantly in our daily lives. Making a mistake is making an error without the knowledge that you are indeed messing up. You can get away with making small minor mistakes in your life. However, nobody gets away with making poor choices over and over. Read the quote at the top of this article again.

At some point those poor choices are going to catch up with you and impact your life. This is difficult for young adults to wrap their minds around. They live in the present and think that the future will work out on its own. I love their optimism, but I think many of us lack realism.

The first step to identifying mistakes as poor choices is to be honest with yourself. Once you acknowledge that you do have choices, you will be able to start taking charge of your life and your future. Mistakes will happen. However, mistakes happen due to lack of knowledge or error and are typically out of your control. You have control of your choices. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will stop making excuses for our lack of success and start making smart choices that will help us reach our goals. Don’t let your choices ruin your life.

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Workout of the Day
P90X One on One Volume 3: Yoga