Mistakes happen...

So it was fifth grade, just before lunch time.  My friend and I got out a little early, so we decided to play a little hockey with a lunch box lying on the ground.  After a couple of a passes, I decided to take a slap shot and score on a trashcan goal with my makeshift hockey stick.  To my surprise, the lunchbox broke into many pieces and food went all over the place.  Not thinking of the repercussions of my actions, I immediately turned red.  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I read on the bottom of the lunchbox where it said Janelle Share.  Her mom knew my mom, so I knew I would get into trouble.  I tried to hide from what happened, but she found out I did it.  Her mom called my mom, just as I hoped it wouldn’t, and I had to pay for the lunch box.   I had made a mistake, and eventually, it caught up with me.

In the book An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro, the main character, Masuji Ono made many life changing mistakes.  One of which was while he was teaching described on page 182-184.  Ono had become suspicious of one of his students (Mr. Kuroda) and thinks that he is talking an excessive amount about the war.  Ono reports Mr. Kuroda to the government, thinking that it was no big deal.  Later Ono finds out that Mr. Kuroda was innocent, and experienced very hard times in his life from that point on.

Ono got too caught up in his own nationalistic ideologies, and neglected to think about the repercussions of turning his student in.  In the same way, I was caught up in my own games, and neglected to think about what might happen to the lunch box if I chose to play hockey with it.  In the midst of life, all we can do is our best, and face the misdeeds as they come.  For me, breaking that lunch box was an invaluable lesson.  I learned that I am responsible for my actions, and a real man would own up to his misdeeds. 

Ono feels remorse, to a degree, but I question whether he would change the past if he could.  His other major mistake was changing his paintings from reflections of the floating world to nationalistic propaganda.  As he reflects his life near the end of the book, he says “…I freely admit I made many mistakes. I accept that much of what I did was ultimately harmful to our nation, that mine was part of an influence that resulted in untold suffering for our own people (p.123).  However, on page 134, he says, "If one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is a consolation-indeed, a deep satisfaction-to be gained from this observation when looking back over one's life".  He is basically inferring that the risk he took in
painting "propaganda" was, in his mind, worth it.