Personal Narrative: Lessons Learned From Failure

The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Failure is not merely the reciprocal of success; moreover, it is the shadow of success waiting for the correct path of light to grow and unveil itself. Instead of being melancholy about failing, we should take our failure as an advantage to do the correct thing and succeed. After all, as said by Ellen Degeneres, “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” I, along with the billions of other people on this planet, have failed many times in life. However, there are certain failures that can teach us a value so powerful that it can outpower the most preached teachings or morals.

Once such failure happened to me when I was an eighth grader in middle school. It was last semester before summer, and every teacher was cramming in an overwhelming amount of information because school was almost over and it was time to take final exams. Almost everyday, I did not pay attention to what the teachers was talking about. When the time came to study for final exams and look over the review packets with endless amounts of questions, I became completely expressionless and wanted to bawl my eyes out. I decided not to study and

just go with it because this was truly an irreversible case of learned helplessness. As expected, I failed nearly all my final exams, resulting in grades barely bypassing the cut-offs for retaking the class.

Even though my mind was racing with many negative thoughts- how will I graduate high school, will I pass all my classes, or what if I have to get held back- I knew deep down that I could turn this mistake into a powerful success.

So it began. Ever since the first day of freshman year, I put forth all my energy towards academics: I payed attention in every class, asked questions if I didn’t understand anything, took notes regardless if the information was or trivial or not, and studied rigorously until late in the night. To my amazement, my hard work payed off extremely well and yielded well above passing grades and a prideful place in the top

ten.

Without experiencing such a failure prior to my success, I would have never achieved the academic accomplishments I have today. Instead, I would have continued making the same mistakes and pushing my dreams and goals miles ahead of me. Failing gives us a greater opportunity than itself to try harder and attain the things that you desperately want or need. It is life’s way of telling us to swerve to the golden path of success by transferring the negative situation into a positive achievement that can be cherished forever.