When you are little you can argue and fight and scream at your parents and then just say that you’re sorry and they will let it slide. But as people get older they will most likely continue to do the same things that they did when they were little. When that happens, you are digging yourself a hole. You keep screaming and yelling and arguing with your parents and one day they aren’t going to just slide it under the rug.  Instead, they will most likely leave you in your hole.

Now, I know that when I dig myself a hole, I can get pretty deep. I have the ability to continually argue my point, even if it is on the left side of absolutely wrong, until I am 11 feet under. This analogy was brought to light by my dad. I remember I was arguing with him about something that was idiotic and stupid. But I thought I was right, and if you ask anyone they would tell you that If I think I am right, I will fight until I am blue in the face.

I definitely have ways of digging myself into holes, but holes can be different. They don’t have to be from that one time you argued with your dad about that one thing, or when you told your mom that you would do something and you didn’t. They can be lies. They can be things that eat you up and tear your insides apart. But as I am typing this, I realize that those are the ones that most people end up in.

I went around asking my classmates, “How do you get out of a hole you dug for yourself?” Many of them said that you should just jump, scream, or use your shovel to stand on and try to jump to the top. Their answers were black and white, or maybe I should say simple and overly complicated. But in my opinion, you need to climb. You have to put one foot above the other and set your sights on the opening.

Climbing out means that you have fixed your problems. You have apologized. Or you have even argued your point and made it valid. You can’t dig your way out of a hole, unless you just want to go deeper, but in the end if you keep digging you are just going to tire yourself out more than the ones who decide to climb. You have to be able to work and see that what you are doing could be wrong, and you have to be able to get yourself out.

All throughout this column, as I have been typing, I have realized that I have not spoken anywhere about how to legitimately get oneself out of a hole in a professional manner. With my long and extensive list of experience from digging, I have learned a thing or two about climbing. So I will list a few:

1. Apologize. It’s hard. It is a pain for people with pride but you have to do it. It is one of the only ways to get yourself out. Sure, it makes you vulnerable and makes you feel terrible because you are recognizing that you were at fault, but you have to do it.
2. Talk about it. This is another thing you HAVE to do. I know it is hard to tell your dad that we need to sit down and talk about the disagreement at hand, but DO IT. It helps.
3. Learn to compromise. For me, it took forever to learn this concept. I am nowhere near a master, but I am working towards it. Learning to compromise solves many disputes because in the end both people end up getting what they want. 

In life, there are no ladders to save you. You have to save yourself, and you have to learn how to climb.