When I was in first grade, I was a slow learner. Watching the other kids in my class grasp concepts quickly while I struggled was painful. At our school, we read Sam and Ann books. I was stuck in book 2 while many of my classmates had advanced to book 10. The smartest kid in the class was already in book 13. I was amazed that anyone could be so far ahead of the rest of us.

Every time a child moved up to the next book level, they were rewarded with a piece of candy. The day finally came when I advanced to book 3. I was thrilled! My teacher was proud of me too. She reached into her desk to give me a piece of candy but found that she didn’t have any left. After searching, she found a stick of gum instead. She handed it to me and said, “Leonard, I’ll give you this gum if you promise not to chew it until you get home.” I eagerly agreed.

But temptation got the better of me during recess. I thought, No one will know if I chew it now. I unwrapped the gum and began chewing. When we lined up to come back inside, a teacher spotted me. My crime was obvious. I was immediately asked to spit out the gum and, as punishment, spend my next recess writing, “I will not chew gum in school.”

My connection to gum—and trouble—didn’t end there. Later that same year, I came home from the store with my dad, happily chewing gum. My dad immediately realized something was off because gum was a rare treat in our house. Knowing we had just come from the store, he quickly put two and two together. Once again, I found myself in trouble because of gum. I had taken a pack without paying for it.

My dad insisted that I make things right. He marched me back to the store, where I had to admit my mistake to the manager and pay for what I had taken. The experience left a strong impression on me. I’m grateful to have had a dad who taught me the importance of owning up to my mistakes and making better choices. Looking back, that lesson wasn’t really about gum at all. It was about responsibility and learning that actions have consequences.

Years later, I spent much of my career as a custodian at a school. It was a rewarding job, and I loved seeing the students grow and learn. Before I retired, though, I remember something that surprised me: students were given gum before taking their big year-end tests. I couldn’t believe it. Don’t they know gum is against the rules? I thought.

That memory got me thinking about double standards. As a child, gum was “bad.” Don’t chew it at school. As an adult working in a school, suddenly I was watching teachers hand it out. The same thing that once cost me a recess was now being given to students by the adults.

Life is full of contradictions like that.

As children, we are often taught that the rules are simple: this is right and that is wrong. But the older we get, the more we discover that life isn’t always quite that simple. Rules change. Circumstances change. Sometimes even the people enforcing the rules change their minds.

I’ve also discovered plenty of double standards in myself. It’s easy to notice inconsistencies in other people while overlooking our own. We can expect patience from others while being impatient ourselves. We can want people to forgive our mistakes while having a difficult time overlooking theirs. We can tell someone else not to worry about what people think while spending plenty of time worrying about exactly that.

Perhaps growing older isn’t about finally having everything figured out. Maybe it’s about becoming more willing to recognize our own contradictions.

That little stick of gum from first grade has stayed in my memory for more than half a century. At the time, it was simply something I desperately wanted to chew. Years later, watching students receive gum at school made the whole thing seem pretty funny.

The rules may change as we travel through life, but one lesson my dad taught me hasn’t: when we make a mistake, own it, make it right, and learn something from it.

Maybe that’s one standard worth keeping.

Did you miss last week’s story? Read A Lifelong Friend and discover how decades of adventures, laughter, and ordinary moments can grow into a friendship that lasts a lifetime.