When
I was a little younger, I never quite understood it when one of my
closest friends always told me that people often channel their energy
and anger, after failures, into other things usually more productive.
This was until I encountered a peculiar situation myself...
At a particular point in time, during my
first year in Senior Secondary School (SS1), Biology, one of the
subjects I took, posed a threat to my grades, as I did not perform well
and constantly got low grades in it. More often than not, it had a
negative effect on my total average, and consequently, I began to
dislike Biology as a subject to the point that I wished that I could
just drop it completely. I therefore resorted to ignoring Biology and
completely giving up on it; while focusing more on other subjects and
scoring higher in them in order to make up for my laxity in Biology, and
I soon embarked on the measures necessary for achieving this goal.
Not long after I made my decision, not
only did my mother notice from my end-of-term result that I was not
performing as well as I used to, she also noticed the huge difference
between my Biology grades and those of my other subjects. She called me
to ask me about it and I told her about my problem and how I intended to
go about it. After arguing, disagreeing and discussing with her, she
came up with a more suitable solution to my problem.
First, she questioned by abilities and
will, and then she advised that I take the class as personal challenge,
and try my very best to improve my grades. She was certain that even if I
succeeded not because I was really interested in the class, I would
feel so much better about myself because it was a goal I set for myself,
and one I accomplished. So I decided to try it out.
With her advice, I took a whole new
approach to the situation. All the resentment I previously felt was
indeed channeled into something more productive. It pushed me to make
more efforts to do better in Biology in order to improve my grades. I
began to show more interest in the subject by participating more
actively during Biology class discussions and I even began sitting in
the front of class to ensure that my full attention was always given to
the teacher while she taught.
Soon after, it paid off and the results
were spectacular. It was no surprise at all that my Biology grades
gradually escalated, and I soon began to top my class at the subject. In
fact, I was nominated for the “Best in Biology” award in the following
two years. I even began to enjoy the concept of Biology in itself, and
today, my dream of becoming a medical doctor stems from my new found
love for Biology.
This experience taught me that failure
is indeed a step (or few) away from success, and rather than accept it
as a defeat, we should turn the situation around and strive to overcome
it. After all, many successful people today, like many of us, have
experienced failure in one way or another, but what made the difference
is how they were able to take those experiences and positively transform
them. As the well renowned actress/talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres,
once said: “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on
success.”
With that, I leave you with this short poem by Denis Waitley:
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
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