Non-Academic Engagement

While failure and difficulty at their core are solitary experiences, humans tend to let their environment play a bigger role than it has a right to play. Environments that we let hold us back can be anything, including demanding tasks put in our paths and other people who unjustifiably work toward our failure instead of against it. Everyone eventually encounters something of this degree of difficulty and someone of this deleterious character in their life, and even though the task is not affected by us at all and the perpetrator might forget about it within days, human nature can lead the victims to carrying these setbacks around long after it should still be affecting them. Refusing to let other people's words or the difficulty of circumstances

I spent fifth through eighth grade at a small private school, so making the team would not be considered a competitive process. No one had ever been cut from the team, and instead, we often had to combine grade levels in order to have enough players to qualify. Despite the fact that simply joining and being a body on the bench was important at our school, I worked as hard as I could to be a vital member of the team. In seventh grade, we had an overwhelming three players on our team, which resulted in us combining with the eighth graders to form one team. My work ethic kicked in and I earned as much playing time as I could for much of the team being older and taller. Consequently, I gained substantial confidence in my skills and hard work when I was called in to the game specifically when we needed our best

While being a moderately proficient player on a tiny, parochial-conference team seemed like an accomplishment to me, nothing at such a small school could have prepared me for the competitive environment of a public school with thousands of students. When I attended the summer basketball program at the local high school the summer before eighth grade, I was ill-prepared. The girls were more athletic, more talented, and more numerous than I had any idea to expect. My supposed skills paled in comparison and I became a bench warmer next to a girl who was only there because her sister was on the varsity team.

The only thing that could make my internal disappointment more painful was the disapproval I received from girls who were my peers grade-wise but far superior to me when it came to capability. One girl specifically had singled me out as the bottom of the food chain, and it felt to an emotional, preteen me that it was her personal goal of the summer sessions to comment derisively every time I made a mistake. She refused to pass to me during games, mockingly questioned whether I belonged in a lower grade level, and laughed openly at me every time she managed to lap me during speed