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Mistakes Make Us

5/30/2025

By Luke L., Grade 11

I was out on a run with my airpods in a couple weeks ago, and my Spotify shuffled to the song “Dear Younger Me” by MercyMe. If you haven’t heard the song before, it doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out what it’s about: it’s a person addressing the universal desire to offer wisdom and comfort to one’s past self and wondering what they would tell the younger version of themselves.

Now, at first I was going to skip the song, because it’s not really the most energetic music to be running to, but then again if I did skip it, I probably wouldn’t be talking about it right now.

The song just resonated with me. The lead singer, Bart Millard, talks about how much smoother his life would be if he could tell his younger self everything he learned, and how to avoid all the painful mistakes he made. In one of the verses, he contemplates what he would say if he actually had the chance to see his younger self. He says: “Do I give some speech about how to get the most out of your life”, or “Do I try to change the choices that you’ll make, cause they’re the choices that made me.”

Then I started wondering, what would I tell my younger self if I had the chance to talk to him? There are a whole lot of things I could tell myself to make my life better. An almost infinite number of embarrassing moments I could avoid. I could tell my past self to rewrite this speech again, perfect it to every minute detail, make it a little bit funnier. I mean I could even be a millionaire If I convinced my toddler self to dump his money into bitcoin.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the importance of every single mistake I’ve made in life. Mistakes make us human. Going through life being able to anticipate every single thing you’ve done wrong is like watching a movie where you know every plot twist. The entire point of watching a good movie is that you haven’t seen it before. Sure, you can rewatch it, but it’s never like seeing it for the first time.

So why do we want to change the past? It’s simple. We’re scared of making those mistakes. Although mistakes make us human, they’re also the one thing that humans tend to be afraid of the most.

In reality, though, messing up is the most crucial part of learning in life. The days where everything seems to be going wrong are the ones that shape our lives into something unique and impactful. No matter how much it hurts now, someday you will look back and realize your struggles and mistakes changed your life for the better. And remember, you only live once, it’s kind of silly to spend it being scared of messing up.

So, if I had the chance to talk to my younger self, to tell him every right thing to do, I think I would just keep my mouth shut. I’m grateful for all the times I messed up and I honestly look forward to all the mistakes I’ll make in the future, because they make me, me.