Three the Hard Way

Illustration Essay
“Three the Hard Way”
“Honesty is the best policy”, my mother used to tell me. Lying is an example of fear and low standards one has.   If I lie or make excuses I will never solve the issue or problem I have, because there will be no demand on a change because I have gotten out of the situation temporarily with either a lie or excuse. My mother would say to my brothers and me, “The bible says not to have sex before marriage, save myself for the appointed time.” That speech went in one ear and out of the other.   One that I really question growing up was “Watch the crowd you associate with, what they do you do is how others will look at you.” my mother explained. “Be in before dark, nothing good happens after dark”, “don’t play with matches”, “don’t do drugs”, and “don’t smoke”. The list goes on with statements and facts taught to me by my mother, family members and other responsible adults in my life growing up. Everyone has a least one experience where they had to learn a lesson through hardships. Learning through hardships usually has a lasting impression on a person the situation one has experienced they had to learn some valuable lessons in their lives the “hard way” through unpleasant experiences. Some hard lessons help a person learn or change in a positive manner, while some lessons learned have been proven to be irreversible in consequence. A common response for a person learning through hardships is, “I should have listened to____!!”, in other words I was already told, taught or seen it happen before it happened to me.
It was Friday night and I was getting ready to go to my evening walk-through football practice for the game Saturday afternoon. I had just gotten off punishment a few days earlier. I had asked my mother if I could borrow the car to go to practice. I informed my mother that I was just going to practice only and I would not have anyone else in the car. All the while I knew practice was going to over earlier than normal...