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Travelling to New Orleans by car, I was half-bored and half-pensive as I kept the dial tuned to the closest classic-rock station. A lot of that time was invested in personal thought about my life. As my friend Ryan once said, “God invented Kansas¹ for us to look at our lives as we drive through it. Why? Because there is simply nothing better to look at.” Well, Mississippi is not Kansas; Mississippi is actually quite beautiful. However, beautiful landscapes start to look the same after about an hour of driving. As I got to thinking about my life and my past, I couldn't help thinking about something that I did somewhere in my past, and I couldn't help saying to myself That was dumb. It's these dumb moments that have made me a better person… not because there is something magical in and of itself concerning doing something bad, but because I know that I'll never make the same mistake twice… I hope.

Anyway, I tried to compile a list of the top-ten worst mistakes of my life. The problem is that I had trouble coming up with ten mistakes that were critical moments in my life (at least ten mistakes that I would be comfortable publicly sharing). So, I only thought of five mistakes. Here they are:

Fifth: Majoring in Computer Science — My father works with computers. There has never been a moment in my life where there was not a computer in our home. I can remember the first time that I ever used a computer. It was this weird Sesame Street game where you would hit F7 when the right word was at the right place on the Ferris wheel. I have learned the insides and outsides of these machines for as long as I could remember. I can remember really ticking off my fifth-grade teacher² because I brought to the read-in a flippin' huge book about web development rather than some sort of book “about life”. It seems that I was made to be a computer man… wrong! I find my major to be completely dull. I remember talking to a professor of mine at lunch about my classes and major. He was wondering if I had taken all of my core classes to get the pain over early. I had to honestly tell him that those core classes (which cover topics such as philosophy, history, theology, literature) were my favourite part of my university experience. If I had it my way, I would rather just go to college to study philosophy full time. My advice: get rich, screw your scholarships and study whatever topic you want.

Fourth: Hitting a parked car — Okay, hitting the parked car was not the mistake in and of itself. It was the fact that we (we meaning I) decided to perfect the art of drive-by vandalism via toilet paper. Needless to say, obviously one of the most awkward moments of my life had to have been going to the door to tell these nice people that I had hit there car and having the lady who answered the door not wearing any pants. My advice: know when to quit… and don't ever turn your headlights off at night… even when you're trying to sneak up on someone.

Third: Not learning how to play the piano when the opportunity presented itself — Note: as I was writing this (I've written this over a matter of a week, the grandmother who I talk about passed away. So, for me right now, this mistake is really on my mind. Grandmothers are known for being the largest candy suppliers to minors in North America. My grandmother was the largest salad supplier to us grandchildren. Don't get me wrong: I love my grandmother. Another great attribute of my grandmother is her musical aptitude. She regularly gave piano lessons to students. Now, being the person interested in music that I am, it really sucks that I didn't jump on the opportunity to learn how to play when I had the opportunity to get a head start. It also would have been a great way to get to get closer to my grandmother while she was still alive. My advice: learn piano! You can't go wrong by learning piano. If you don't know anyone who can teach piano, learn something from someone.

Second: Not learning how to speak Spanish when the opportunity presented itself — Same story as with piano. Having a sister from Mexico has been a favourable asset in my life; not because she's from Mexico, but because she's just awesome. My parents were also great for adopting her in the first place. They did a great job with trying to make her feel welcome. However, I'm not sure that welcoming my sister was in my list of things to do at the time. In my defence, I was eight years old. My methods for integrating my sister were more practical. Where my idea was to just put my sister in the spare room in the basement, my parents moved all the children down so that she wouldn't feel alienated. Another concept that my parents wanted to implement in the family was that we all learn Spanish. It made little sense to me why four people should learn Spanish rather than one person learn English. I didn't do it. The concept of my learning a foreign language sounded stupid in my mind. My high school didn't agree. Two years of a foreign language was required to graduate. So, I put it off until sophomore year. The summer before sophomore year, something happened: I learned about this crazy language called Esperanto³. When I found out how easy it was to learn, I took an online course so that I could learn it. Then, one thing lead to another. To make things short, Esperanto got me interested in the whole study of linguistics. However, despite my best interests to learn Spanish (and French) in high-school, I still to this day have got mastered the language. My advice: learn a language, and start with Esperanto. Also, if you're serious about learning Spanish, room with a crazy, Chilean kid.

First: Dating the wrong woman — I would go into detail here, but there are a number of reasons why I can't. Essentially, this is the worst mistake that I ever made because of what kind of person she became as a result and what kind of person I became as a result. My advice: if a girl (or guy for you girls) takes an interest in you and you don't like her like that, don't pursue things. No matter how desperate you are, if she doesn't do it for you, don't force it. If you don't like her, you won't respect her, and that's important in a relationship.

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1. My friends from Kansas would murder me if they knew that I would be referring to their state in such a way. I think that it's important to note that when Ryan said this, he was referring to western Kansas.
2. Don't honestly care that I ticked her off in this instance. It's not like she had a right to be.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto