Learning to be Smart

“Gulp, gulp, gulp…”

Although five years have passed now, I can still clearly recall the terrible sound of my blood gurgling out of my right hand that was cut wide open. I can still remember the sight of the two lines of gruesome, conspicuous openings in my hand and the horrifying white bones which I could see through the openings. My mind became a ramshackle of fear, terror, and perplexity, since I couldn’t believe the unbelievable scene of so much gore pumping out of my own body part. I was truly afraid; I let my throat bellow out a horrendous scream. Then my three friends, who had also panicked momentarily, put themselves together at my dreadful shriek and helped me to the school infirmary. Trembling in abysmal fear while being carried away, I regretted over and over in my mind for doing the stupidest thing in my life.

The story of this shocking memory starts from a crazy bet I’d made with my friends when I was 14. Most teenagers that age share the common desire of becoming significant and the fear of being left out of their groups; I was exceptional, however, since being recognized by others had been my single important purpose of life. Back then, I thought that was what mattered the most-being cool. Thus, I became a natural show-off, always taking the leading part in outrageous pranks which 7th grade boys wildly rooted for. That was exactly what I did with “Yamakasi” too, a dangerous activity involving climbing obstacles and jumping down from high places, which frantically spread among Korean juveniles.

As the leader of our “Yamakasi” clan, I had to be the first-in-line to try out the most challenging, and therefore risky, tricks among our group. So when my friends had dared me to climb up a pipe that protruded out of our school wall, I faced my dilemma. Climbing up the six-meter-high pipe covered with pointed bolts would be stupid, and needless to mention, dangerous. However, I was more afraid of the peer pressure than I was of the mighty pipe. I feared losing my position as leader, being called a coward, and no longer belonging to the group because I wasn’t “cool” anymore-more than anything else. “I’m the best.” I boasted to myself, and I grabbed the pipe. I wasn’t the best, and I slipped. When I was falling down to the ground, two sharp bolts deeply cut through my hand, and the next thing I felt was the two bottles of antiseptics being poured onto my wound in the infirmary.

As soon as she received the appalling call, my mom stormed to the school and took me to the hospital my dad worked at. At the emergency room, both of my parents nervously stood by as the surgeon sewed up the injury. It hurt so much when the needles penetrated the insides of my body, torturing each of my nerves fifty consecutive times, but when I saw the frightened tears bursting out of my mom’s eyes, I couldn’t shed mine.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay, alright? This surgeon’s a close friend of your father’s, and he knows what he’s doing…”
“I know, mom. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry…”

That night, the fifty sutures in my hand burned with pain, but another flame also blazed inside my heart which hurt just as much as my scars. It was a fire of guilt and shame razed, and I felt that way for doing the stupidest thing in my life; for making such a stupid decision knowing its stupidity. I secretly sobbed in my pillows, for the agony of my hand and my chest.

From then on, I didn’t join another illicit, dangerous prank my friends devised to consolidate their unity. I never smoked, I never shoplifted, and I never did something that I was confident it was the wrong thing to do. This wasn’t because I was particularly moral among my peers, but because my scars hurt from time to time, and I was reminded of the excruciating shame of the night I cried in my pillows. I knew there were things that mattered more than becoming significant and worse than being left out: my mother’s tears, two lines of inerasable scars, and doing the wrong, or perhaps the stupid, thing being aware of the consequences.

There are moments in life when people carry out stupid actions against their gut feeling that tells them to stop. And they do so because of diverse reasons: guys lie to girls to impress them, students cheat on tests to decorate their transcripts, and lunatics climb up pipes to show off-just like I did four years ago.

However, now when I reverberate at the returning pain of my laceration, I gain the willpower to resist. If my friends ever urge me again to climb up the horrible pipe, I would pluck up the courage to admit I’m scared and say “no.” I would tell them that it’s the stupidest thing for a person to do, and it’s not worth my guilt and my mom’s sorrow. Just like that, my scars ironically served as my sources of courage to be who I am, guiding me to do the right things; the smart things. And although mine doesn’t teach me the emerging of a Dark Lord like Harry Potter’s, it does teach me a valuable lesson: to be smart.

And now, I think before I act.