One of my strongest childhood memories is riding a scooter with my best friend. I’ll call him A.

I had convinced A’s mum to buy him a scooter last week, and today was his first time riding it. We went to a nearby park where I taught him how to brake, how it’s better to steer with your hips rather than with the handlebars and he learnt quickly. After some time, I suggested we go down a nearby hill.

“I’ll go first,” I said encouragingly. “If you fall, I’ll come and get you”. A reluctantly agreed.

It was a warm sunny day with a gentle breeze. With a few strong kicks, I flew down the familiar hill on my scooter, narrowly avoiding some bumps and holes in the pavement, before making it up the other side. I turned around, exhilarated, and gestured to A to go.

“It’s easy,” I called.

A reluctantly pushed off, but it was immediately clear the hill was too steep for his ability. His hands wobbled, uncertain with the speed, and halfway down he lost his balance and fell off. His scooter fell to the grass on the side, while A tumbled down the pavement to the bottom. He didn’t move, and for a moment, I feared he was dead.

Just as I was about to run down, I noticed a group of students gathering at the hill. I recognised their faces and paused – they were the local school bullies, and I was quite sure one of them didn’t like me. The thought of going down and getting jumped put me in a state of paralysis. I knew I had to help A but all I could do was watch him from the top. Nobody else had seen him except me – his best friend, who was too much of a coward to do anything. I felt a strange, disgusting emotion build up inside of me; I later identified it as shame.

“Please move,” I prayed. “Please.”

To my relief, A slowly got to his feet. He noticed his scooter lying on the grass, its handlebars all deformed, and went to recover it. As he slowly limped back up the hill, the bullies noticed his bleeding knee.

“Hey,” they called. “Better get that checked up.” He nodded, and my new emotion intensified. Even the bullies were more considerate than me.

I could not meet his eye when he made it up. I had betrayed my best friend – had I not told him I would help him if he fell? Yet when he needed help the most, all I could do was watch. I was pathetic. A coward. We didn’t speak for the rest of the day, and at school we began to avoid each other. I felt I had made an irreversible chasm in our friendship.

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There are a few miseries we must face as humans. These include thirst, starvation, jealousy, boredom; but the most tragic one of all, the one that pierces our soul most deeply, is the awareness we have committed a mistake we cannot go back and fix. Additionally, I think we do a great deal to avoid admitting these mistakes to ourselves.

But it is in the pain of our mistakes where human greatness lies. This memory of A and the hill is not a bad one, for with it came lessons on self-sacrifice and courage. The shame from that day paved the foundation for future fond memories; ones where I chose to run down the hill instead of staying at the top. More importantly, I was able to eventually make amends with A. Though we don’t ride scooters anymore, we still remain good friends to this day.

If regrets help us learn essential truths about ourselves, then those experiences will not have been wasted. I say, let our pain reveal lessons about morality, justice, and humanity. It is there where we are one step closer to greatness.

“Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.” – Goethe, Maxims and Reflections.