Coloring Outside the Lines

Because Breaking the Rules can be Good for You

By: Emily Mccaslin

Life is a beautiful thing, filled with good and bad, bruises and scars, but they make you who you are. But it is how you got those bruises and scars that make life truly worth living.

When I was little, my first scar was from my family’s golf cart. It was a thing to drive your golf cart around your neighborhood and drive to all your friends’ houses. My golf cart was different from everyone else’s because it didn’t have a backseat. Instead, it had two belts that initially helped hold your golf clubs in place. I didn’t own golf clubs, but I had the next best thing, my body. Instead of listening to my mom and sitting up front, I thought it would be a good idea to buckle myself in the belt straps and have my sister drive. As you can probably guess, this didn’t end well. It was fun riding at first, but ultimately, I fell, and I was left with a big scar to show. It’s a fun story, and sure it hurt, but it was fun riding in the back and feeling free, and now my sister and I can laugh about it.

Breaking the rules can be good for you sometimes. It teaches you to let loose and have fun. Life is about living and creating new experiences; some of the best memories come from bending the rules a little.

If you spend your whole life living by strict guidelines, then you’re not giving yourself room to grow in a different manner.

Rules are set for a reason, yes, but they also have the power to restrict you from experiencing certain things.

Think about movies. I agree, they’re not always realistic, but I enjoy living my life as if I were in a movie. None of the best movies become great by people just sitting still and following the rules.

think my favorite time that I broke the rules was on a family vacation. At this particular moment, we went to a park that had many different paths you could take. And as my high school journalism teacher and Robert Frost taught me, you should always take the road less traveled. On our hike, we came upon a sign that said, “don’t enter.” So, of course, we did the responsible thing and went right past it. Because we broke the rules, we found this beautiful underwater cave with water that glistened like diamonds. Because we went against the rules, we got to experience this 11/10 moment as a family. Talk about a movie moment.

Some Instructions are meant to be rewritten. Obviously, be careful and use your judgment, but take time to find a new sense of freedom every once in a while. You don’t want to live your life not really living at all.

My advice to you: do one thing every day that scares you, even if it means breaking the rules a little bit.