When I found out what failure means to me
Ever since my first day at school “C” was not something I could lower to. I had always been so good with my grades no matter how much I hated the subject, but sometimes “B” felt like failing and I used to get grumpy and sometimes cry when I didn’t get the mark I wanted.
This feeling that I couldn’t understand had followed me not just at school with my marks, but in my everyday life. For example; in arguments and fights when accompanied by others, I had always let the others win the argument or quarrel or anything like that unlike when alone, I never let anyone mess with me and never kept quiet in quarrels. This was very confusing for others around me, none of them had ever said it to my face but their comments about how weird and perplexing and hard to deal with I was had always found its way to me. This act of weirdness had confined me in complete loneliness. I had never had real friends my entire school years until my first year at collage when I met a quiet nice girl who liked me simply from my playlist. She was the only friend I had all my collage years and I was satisfied with having only one true friend but still, the idea that people still found me odd and confusing was bothering me.
I was irritated by what people used to say about me until I figured out why I was acting so oddly, why I hadn’t got an A when I felt I deserved one, why I was always quiet when others taunted me why I had lost lots of arguments, and why I acted the opposite when no one was watching. It’s not hard to psychologically analyse yourself and figure a solution to your behaviour I found out, and when I analysed my behaviours I had noticed something:
When I “messed up” my exams and by that I mean didn’t get the A I had wanted I remembered I used to go home and cover my face with my pillow and cry until my mother came and wiped my tears and gave me the pep talk she used to give me whenever I felt upset about something. Here I knew I unintentionally didn’t do my best to get the best result I was prepared to because deep down I felt the bigger need to have my mother’s embrace than to ace the exam. Once I had realized this, it was easy to understand the argument part; I let the others win the arguments and never responded to their taunting when I was accompanied by others because I needed others to defend me and back me up but that had never happened, and I was tough when I had no one watching to back me up, I had never let anyone mess with me. So that was it, I simply just needed a shoulder to lean on, it felt good experiencing it with my mom and I thought it would be easy to feel the same with everyone else. To me that was “failure”. Failure to know what I wanted and how to separate between what I wanted and what I needed that would preclude me from achieving my goal.
As soon as I recognized what is failure to me my life has turned 180 degrees to the better. I have become better academically by doing my best in my exams and have the triumph embrace with my mother. It turned out to be better than the old embrace I used to enjoy. Lately I don’t get into quarrels with others, not in front of an audience or when I am alone because knowing my issue has helped others as much to better understand me and that has helped me being socially better.
Now that I understand what failure is it’s not a part of my life anymore. I have a large group of friends and I have finished a yearlong advanced English course with a good degree and I am enjoying my life every day and every night.
Finally, what I need to remind everyone is that failure is not a bad thing if you can use it to better understand and identify your problems that obstructs you from success. Everything happens for a reason and for some people failure may be caused by some ridiculous and embarrassing ones that no one would like to admit to themselves but that shouldn’t be the case, what’s matter is finding it and then it’s easy to act and success is in your hands. Your life will be much better and you will never have to experience the same failure again.
