Have you ever had a situation where listening and thinking twice really mattered? Listening and thinking twice have a significant impact on our decision-making. When we make a choice we should listen carefully and think twice before we decide. Our choices can negatively or positively change our lives. When we don’t listen and think twice and make bad decisions, negative consequences may follow…
Right now I am seven or so; I go to Great Escape a lot in the summer with my mom and sister. Today is a lovely warm day with an occasional breeze. We stroll in through security, and we quickly scan our season passes. We jaunt into the park with a fun day ahead of us, full of thrilling rides, cooling pools, and swirling water slides. We excitedly walk over to the carousel, and we get in line. After the carousel, we start to feel painfully hot. We all quickly race over to the refreshing water park. My sister and I quickly decide we want to go on the indoor spiraling water slide; the water on the slide is glistening so peacefully. We wait patiently in line. We get to the front and go down the twisting slide. We spend nearly half the day chilling in the wave pool, floating in the lazy river, and enjoying the water slides.
We slip out of our dripping-wet bathing suits and head over to the little kid rides. My sister wants to go on the school bus rides because she is younger. Then I want to go on the little dropping tree house ride, so we get in line. I wait in the excruciating heat until we get on the ride. Then it is my sister’s turn to pick. We go back and forth, picking rides until an hour and a half before closing time. I just pick a ride, so it is my sister’s turn, but she wants to go on a ride all the way to the back of the park. I really want to go on one last ride before we go to the back of the park.
“Mom, can I go on this ride before we go on her ride?” I say, pointing to the ride I desire to go on.
“No, after her ride we can walk back over here and go on the ride you want to go on.”
I don’t want to have to walk back and forth between rides. I also don’t want to wait to go on my ride. While my mom and sister start walking over to her ride choice, I expeditiously sneak away and stroll toward my chosen ride. While I casually walk over to the ride, my mom notices I am not with her and tries to find me. I arrive at the ride and get into a line of about twenty people. The operator opens the exit gate, and people swiftly get off the ride. Then he opens the entrance gate in front of the line and lets half the people on. The operator flips a switch, and the ride suddenly starts. I watch as the people enjoy the ride, knowing that I would get to ride soon. After a couple of minutes, the ride descends and whirs to a stop. Again, he opens up the gate labeled “exit” and lets the passengers off the ride. The operator walks over and lets some people on, this time me included.
I happily step into one of the ride carts and buckle my seatbelt. While I am waiting in line my mom is talking to security so they could come to find me. The operator flips the same switch. Instantly, the ride starts flying through the air, like an eagle soaring through the clouds. The ride ends a few minutes later. I unclip my seatbelt and step off the ride. The operator opens the gate and lets us all off of the ride.
As I walk through the open gate I quickly realize that I have absolutely no way of knowing where my mom is. I walk around the park nervously, desperately trying to find my mom. I walk around by the ride my sister chose to go on. A security guard notices me and asks if I am looking for my mom. I anxiously say yes, and he walks me over to customer service.
My mom hugs me and says, “Don’t ever run away like that again. You should’ve listened to what I said to you.”
“I know, Mom, I’m sorry, I promise next time I’ll think before I do things,” I reply.
I took away a lot of things from the experience, and I learned a valuable lesson. Now I know that I should listen, follow directions and think twice before I do something. This helps me and could help you make better decisions, resulting in positive outcomes. In any situation, if you listen carefully and think twice before you act, it will positively affect your life.
-Natalie M.
I can relate to this as I two have sometimes acted without thinking. You make a great job describing how you did it, “I expeditiously sneak away and stroll toward my chosen ride.” However, you also do well explaining the central idea, “In any situation, if you listen carefully and think twice before you act, it will positively affect your life. ”
ReplyDeleteNatalie Muller,
ReplyDeleteI love how you use an engaging voice by describing the kind of day it was in great detail. I like the line “I wait in the excruciating heat until we get on the ride” because you used a great adjective (excruciating) to describe the heat and it really helped me imagine how hot of a day it was. I can relate to the experience because of a time where I was at a fair with my family and I snuck away from them to go watch a dog show. My mother was worried about my location so the security guards came to look for me. Although I knew where to find them and was not worried, my mother was petrified that I had gotten lost. Your story teaches a great lesson about following directions and thinking hard about decisions you make. A consequence of the bad decision you made was highlighted in the line “I walk around the park nervously, desperately trying to find my mom.” This line shows that a consequence of your bad decision was the fear you felt when you realized you could not find her, and is important to the message of thinking about the consequences of your decisions before you make them. Great job!
I like the way you described the problem after you didn’t listen and showed how not listening can end up causing bad things to happen. When you listen, things might not always go how you want but at least you're safe and you don't have to worry about something going wrong. I can connect this to my life because I don’t listen to my mom much either and sometimes that ends up with a bad outcome.
ReplyDeleteNatalie your story did a great job of showing that you need to think twice before acting. I also have a younger sibling so I can relate to what you were going through. Your story reminds me of when I was younger and I got lost in a store, and I couldn’t find my mom. “As I walk through the open gate I quickly realize that I have absolutely no way of knowing where my mom is. I walk around the park nervously, desperately trying to find my mom.” Great job.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed listening to your story. I related to this because this also sort of happened to me. The story really comes alive when you said , “ Today is a lovely warm day with an occasional breeze.” This sentence includes good figurative and sensory language. It also sets the setting. And I also had the same kind of experience and learned the lesson of listening and thinking twice before you make a decision. Overall this story includes really good grammar and punctuation. Thanks for the amazing story Natalie!
ReplyDeleteFrom Rhys:
ReplyDeleteI can relate to this because one time when I was little something almost exactly the same happened to me. I wanted to go somewhere else in a store, but my dad said no, so I ended up going by myself and got lost. The lesson from this is to follow directions, and it says this in your story at the end where it talks about,“listening carefully and think twice before you act,” and it “will positively affect your life.” A lot of people have trouble following directions. Heck, I have trouble following directions. It’s good when people acknowledge that we need to do better with it.