Writing Feedback / "Success is harder to accept than Failure" [4]

Hello everyone. I need help regarding my essay on "success is harder to accept than failure". Suggestions are very much appreciated. Thank you :)

If I didn't graduate with flying colors, I'm sure I wouldn't have to deal with all the pressure from my family and my colleagues, thus, could focus on having fun and enjoying my life at its fullest. But everything changed when I did. Things soon started to pile up and I needed to choose whether to look for a job or to study for the Licensure Examinations for Teachers in the Philippines. I made the decision to prepare for the test since I believe that it's the stepping stone towards getting the job that I want.

I buried myself in reading books and study guides, consistently completing and perfecting practice tests with a specific goal in mind - to top the licensure examinations. Those became my routinary activities a couple of months before the big day. The day of the examinations finally came. Aspiring licensed teachers-to-be are gathered around and in the building, searching for their room assignments. Having found mine, I observed that most of the test takers in my room are very vocal about their worries, but I don't want to stress myself too much that I tried to be as calm as possible so I won't have emotional tension and nervousness. The proctor came with the forms and the papers that will determine our future status. I struggled to search for answers to the questions, leaving no items blank and unanswered, no matter how difficult they are.

Coping with the agony of waiting increased my anxiety as the days went by. Every day, I received messages and notes of motivation and encouragement from my peers and professors. Very pleasant as they seem to be, I can still feel the demands from the people around me. Graduating with honors indeed entails a number of responsibilities such as bringing honor to my school, satisfying the expectations of my mentors and the like. Yes, I am endowed with a free will to choose, but still, I can't help it sometimes. I can ignore all I want yet I can feel the force of pressure around me.

The Professional Regulation Commission finally released the results after having us wait for a couple of months, prolonging our distress. I successfully passed the examinations and ended up in the fourteenth place, only a few points away from the top ten passers. I felt devastated of course, not being able to reach my goal of topping the examinations, as if my efforts were not recognized. But then, certainly, time heals all wounds. I'm better than before. I'm contented that I passed, and just thinking that other people deserve it better than me made me feel alright. I've learned that in life, success is sometimes bittersweet - I can't get everything that I want no matter how much I give into it, but I can surely gain something from that experience.