Walking away from a cloud of dust and an overturned go-cart, likely with spinning wheels, I dropped my helmet on the soft, hot dirt. My eyes were already dry with dust, and I could taste earth in my mouth. Why I decided to accelerate through unpredictably bumpy field, I can't say, but I do know that my decision would cost me.
A high school friend had invited me to join his family and a few family friends to go-cart on the outskirts of a nearby town. The setting was perfect: a huge and isolated dirt track surrounding grassy field, splashed by sunshine on a colorful summer morning. It grew steadily hotter when my second chance came to race my friend. When it started, nothing went right. I neglected to wear sunglasses, so that the dust filled my eyes and impaired my sight; and though I took measured breaths, I could nonetheless taste it, as well.
You can imagine, then, that it was easy for me to grow impatient. My friend was clear on the opposite side of the track by this time. Perhaps more than wanting to beat him, I just wanted to get the race over with. It would seem logical to look for a shortcut, then.
Psychologists say that the amygdala-- which governs emotions and instinct-- is more active in a teenager than in adulthood, when the reason-oriented frontal cortex takes over. My amygdala must have been fairly active at this time, because I chose to act pretty impulsively. I found my shortcut through the field around which we were racing. I thought that if I just cut directly across it, I could come out in front of my friend and end the race early.
I didn't consider that others may have used that field before me. In fact, it was a popular place for four-wheeling, and after many baking summer afternoons, the once mud-filled pasture was now hardened ground. In it were very deep tire tracks.
I never saw those tracks, but I felt them. Since I felt as though I was being tossed around, my reaction was not to slow down, but to speed up. I felt that I could get it over with more quickly if I sped through it faster, so I did. I increased speed, feeling all the while that it was not the best decision. That didn't dawn on me completely, however, until I was nearly through to the other side. At that point, I struck a deep track at enough of a speed to flip the go cart on its back.
I got out of that small car, and felt a sharp pain in my right arm. Apparently, I had thrown my arms up as the cart flipped, and in the process, the roll bar rolled on top of one of them. Getting up quickly, I began to walk, holding my right arm, which now had a very visible lump.
One of the members of the family who came with us raced to pick me up. I remember telling her that it didn't hurt that bad, and I didn't know why. I remember her saying something like, "That's God's gift of adrenaline."
By the time I was sitting in the primary care office at Kaiser a little later, the lump had grown very large, at least an inch off of my arm. Others said it was broken, and although I wasn't sure, I couldn't think that when the pain wasn't excruciating.
As I sat in that doctor's office, I felt that odd sense of pride that teenage boys sometimes feel when they endure a painful incident like that. The bump, and the dirt that covered my face, was like a badge, a war wound that proved that I was somehow masculine. It's illogical, I know, but that's how I felt at the time. In the end, it turns out that I had crushed the muscle tissue on my arm, and that lump, although much smaller, remains to this day. Far from a badge of durability or manhood, however, its real purpose is to serve as a reminder of the real lesson I learned that day: patience truly is a virtue.
A high school friend had invited me to join his family and a few family friends to go-cart on the outskirts of a nearby town. The setting was perfect: a huge and isolated dirt track surrounding grassy field, splashed by sunshine on a colorful summer morning. It grew steadily hotter when my second chance came to race my friend. When it started, nothing went right. I neglected to wear sunglasses, so that the dust filled my eyes and impaired my sight; and though I took measured breaths, I could nonetheless taste it, as well.
You can imagine, then, that it was easy for me to grow impatient. My friend was clear on the opposite side of the track by this time. Perhaps more than wanting to beat him, I just wanted to get the race over with. It would seem logical to look for a shortcut, then.
Psychologists say that the amygdala-- which governs emotions and instinct-- is more active in a teenager than in adulthood, when the reason-oriented frontal cortex takes over. My amygdala must have been fairly active at this time, because I chose to act pretty impulsively. I found my shortcut through the field around which we were racing. I thought that if I just cut directly across it, I could come out in front of my friend and end the race early.
I didn't consider that others may have used that field before me. In fact, it was a popular place for four-wheeling, and after many baking summer afternoons, the once mud-filled pasture was now hardened ground. In it were very deep tire tracks.
I never saw those tracks, but I felt them. Since I felt as though I was being tossed around, my reaction was not to slow down, but to speed up. I felt that I could get it over with more quickly if I sped through it faster, so I did. I increased speed, feeling all the while that it was not the best decision. That didn't dawn on me completely, however, until I was nearly through to the other side. At that point, I struck a deep track at enough of a speed to flip the go cart on its back.
I got out of that small car, and felt a sharp pain in my right arm. Apparently, I had thrown my arms up as the cart flipped, and in the process, the roll bar rolled on top of one of them. Getting up quickly, I began to walk, holding my right arm, which now had a very visible lump.
One of the members of the family who came with us raced to pick me up. I remember telling her that it didn't hurt that bad, and I didn't know why. I remember her saying something like, "That's God's gift of adrenaline."
By the time I was sitting in the primary care office at Kaiser a little later, the lump had grown very large, at least an inch off of my arm. Others said it was broken, and although I wasn't sure, I couldn't think that when the pain wasn't excruciating.
As I sat in that doctor's office, I felt that odd sense of pride that teenage boys sometimes feel when they endure a painful incident like that. The bump, and the dirt that covered my face, was like a badge, a war wound that proved that I was somehow masculine. It's illogical, I know, but that's how I felt at the time. In the end, it turns out that I had crushed the muscle tissue on my arm, and that lump, although much smaller, remains to this day. Far from a badge of durability or manhood, however, its real purpose is to serve as a reminder of the real lesson I learned that day: patience truly is a virtue.
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