Failure--Ronin

 

One day, I arrived at my dad’s car, silent and disappointed. Once I entered the car, I looked

straight ahead at the view in front of me and said nothing. I tried to hide my feelings by keeping

a straight face, but my dad saw right through me and knew that something was up. He asked

me, “What’s wrong, kiddo?” I answered back, “I scored low on my test today.” After some

back-and-forth talks between my dad and me, I followed up with this question, “What’s

happening right now? Why are they doing this to me? Why do they have to make this so

extremely difficult?” “They’re trying to teach you something, kiddo,” my dad answered. “Teach

me what? That my best is not good enough?” I replied. “To teach you that as good as you think

you are as an AP student, you still have much to learn. Every person will fail or make a mistake

every now and then. Don’t dwell on it, learn from it. Don’t complain about it, do something about

it.” Once we arrived home, I decided to go to my room and reflect on my lack of success or what

many people are familiar with: failure.

There’s an old saying that “no one has a perfect life. Everybody has something that he or she

wishes was not the way it is,” and throughout my entire life, I’ve encountered failure not just

within school, but almost everywhere I went, when playing video games, trying new things, and

even having simple life lesson conversations with my parents. Every time I try to enjoy my day

or give something my absolute best, failure just knocks on the door and spoils the entire day.

The way I viewed these shortcomings back then has only fueled my anger and reduced my

self-confidence, forcing me to compare myself with the peers that surround me and question my

abilities and skills within certain work fields. Failure to me back then was nothing more than a

poison, a curse, and my greatest enemy. Now here I am in high school, 17 years old, taking AP

courses with very little time to rest. Am I still having to deal with failures? Yes, but has my

viewpoint of them changed? It certainly has. It finally dawned on me that failure is not the

opposite of success and that success is never built on success; failure is part of success and it

is what success is built on. When I reflect on what I’ve achieved and gained in the past few

years of my life, I question myself: “How could you have done any of that if it wasn’t for the

mistakes and failures that you’ve made?” I only got better at scoring higher on tests and

acquiring new skills because I learned from my failures and had to improve and change the way

I perform certain tasks. As one can’t have happiness without sadness, one can’t achieve

success without accepting failure in their lives. A person can’t grow or change if they refuse to

learn from their past mistakes and failures; it doesn’t do them any good if they dwell on their

failures and have it only fuel their insecurities.

No one likes to be a failure because deep down in ourselves it’s not who we are, but how can

one achieve great success without accepting that failure is inevitable? As I have referred to

earlier, there are things in my past that I am not proud of, but sometimes I can never be upset at

them. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be where I am today. For a long time, I’ve viewed my past failures

as my enemy as great as time. They were never easy to get over, but now that I’ve realized that

my past failures were never meant to define who I am, they will help me in the future to adapt to

new environments and pave the way for success. Soon I will thank them for helping me become

the person that I’ve grown to be and for becoming my greatest adversary in my life.

Stan Lee Quote:

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1291151/Stan-Lee-No-one-has-a-perfect-life-Everybody-has-some

thing-that-he-wishes-was-not-the-way