When I was in college, looking for a parking space on campus, I spotted one in an adjacent aisle. But I was fairly certain if I tried to drive around to that aisle, somebody else would get there first. But it was possible to drive over the edge of a curbed planter box directly into the parking space.
Which I tried, but midway my tires slipped off the curb and my car slid into the bumper of an adjacent car. There I was, with a dent in my passenger door from the corner of that car’s bumper. The question was, what do I do next? If I drive forward the bumper continues to crease the entire length of my car. If I drive backward, same result. And then someone drove into the parking space I was after.
The answer that was apparent to me at the time, is that I should not have driven over the planter box in the first place. I should have anticipated the consequence I found myself in. There was no way to undo that, and no good choices once I’d done it. It represented to me a learning experience: consider the consequences before you do something stupid, and then accept the consequences if you do something stupid.
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