Undergraduate / 'the true meaning of success and failure' accomplishment, contribution or experience [3]

Hi all! This is my essay for the second UC prompt. I intended it to be much shorter, around 300 words, but it's much longer than that. I need help! This is the first draft and is very unrefined. Please criticize it and help me edit it! Thanks a lot!

Prompt: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I think I began to understand the true meaning of success and failure in 11th grade after losing class elections. Ever since I came to secondary school, I had looked up at the Students' Council members in awe, zealously wanting to become the Behavior Secretary myself one day. I sought to earn the respect and authority that came with the royal blue gown in which the council members fluttered by. I yearned to uphold the tradition of maintaining discipline in Mama School. But when the time came for me to actualize my dream, I failed to avail the opportunity. In the class elections that preceded the school elections, I lost the post to a friend by a fair margin. The dreams and aspirations I had harbored since middle school shattered. I was overcome with shame and disappointment at my failure mingled with a sense of guilt at having stood for class elections in the first place. Deep down my conscience new that my friend and opponent in the election was more deserving for the post. Disciplinary control and authority had resonated in her voice when she silenced a classroom. I was the more passive and gentle, forgiving and meek, and such were attributes not needed for the post. Although I still had the option to stand for school elections thereafter, I chose not to. Humiliated after my defeat, thankfully narcissism and egotism had not fogged my mind's eye. I realized I was at flaw and wanted remediation.

When my friend ran for the school elections, I vigorously campaigned for her as if I were running myself. When she became the Behavior Secretary, I was the first to congratulate her. She nominated me as a member of her subcommittee in acknowledgement of the work I had done for the post in 10th grade. I assisted her in all her chores: preparing lists for minus marks and late comers, doing prefect duties, conducting surprise school bag checks, etc. I realized it was neither the post nor the gown that I aspired to acquire, but it was the work and responsibility that was part and parcel of the post. As humans we are often vulnerable to our overpowering desires which at times make us shallow and selfish. But I am glad that during the elections I was not weak enough to succumb to such desires. My peers and teachers appreciated my stance and gave the example of my humility and spirit to others who had lost. Indeed I had not lost at all. In fact I had accomplished so much by failing. I learnt to cope with failure and matured, realized my mistake and was able to atone for it, and gained respect in the eyes of others by giving and stepping down myself. And in doing so I gained such blissful satisfaction that I could not have gained otherwise.

477 words.