When we are young and learning to walk, we’re still small and have only a short ways to fall before we get to the ground. Similarly, when we’re young we have less power to hurt emotionally as we have more dependence upon, and less responsibility to, those around us. As time goes on, we gain the ability to walk, run, jump, climb, et cetera, but the ground becomes further away, making mistakes a more pressing issue, but assuming that one’s body learns how to stay vertical, less frequent.

But as we grow taller, smarter and older we assume more freedom and responsibility, and shed our dependence, which gives us the ability to have stronger, more meaningful and mutual relationships. In turn, those powers and abilities can wind up hurting ourselves and others the same way that falling down can as we learn to walk. The regret of mistakes that hurt others and the lessons learned from those actions or words are one way that we know that, “something is wrong, don’t do that again”.