Undergraduate / "Failure Is Inevitable" - College Personal Essay [8]

Prompt: 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?

From a young age we were instilled with the idea of winning was better than losing. Nobody wanted to be the loser. In my case I was always headstrong about succeeding in everything I did. It wasn't an option to fail even for the most trivial of situations. In elementary school I had to be the fastest in the class relay races. I pushed myself at a young age to have the mindset that failing meant that I was a failure. It wasn't until I got older that I realized that failing was inevitable and that it was acceptable to fail once in a while. For when I was young I had not yet experienced much outside of playing in the sandbox, I would not know what true challenges would come into play upon aging. Your entrance into high school as a freshman is a time when you are finding yourself as an individual and beginning to mold yourself into who you want to be. During this time for me was a time to achieve more than a simple gold star for acing a vocabulary quiz. I wanted to step outside of the box and set a different goal. With that being said, my goal for freshman year was to become a cheerleader for my high school. It was a goal that I had set for myself because I thought what better way to get involved with the school that I would be at for the next four years other than being a part of the cheerleading team. Frankly I was pleased with the idea of auditioning for the team. I had already had years of experience being a gymnast so I figured that I could apply all my skills to the audition. The audition process lasted for 3 days in all. Throughout the three days we learned a series of tumbling routines, dances and chants. The final day being the third day would be the day everybody would showcase their routines. This day was the day that would determine whether I made the team or not. Still being in the mindset that I would without a doubt make the team, I breezed through my routine with any worries. I was highly satisfied with myself after it was completed. I just knew that after that day I would be officially known as a High School Cheerleader for the 2012-2013 school years. I waited anxiously for the results to be posted a few days later on my school's athletic website. As I read through the list of names under Varsity I found that my name was not there. I searched for the JV list and began to scroll down. It finally hit me when I realized that my name was not listed under this category either. The girl who always succeeds at everything she tries had failed at her goal for the year. I began to question myself and the system. I thought maybe it was because I was bigger than the other girls that made the team, or maybe it was because I was of a different ethnicity. I kept a positive attitude about the situation although I was upset. Later throughout the year I was approached by the cheer coach who wanted to enlist me in the local All-Star Team. It was because of my attitude and perseverance that she thought I would make a perfect candidate for the spot. This incident has stuck with me throughout my entire high school career. It symbolizes my realization that failing does not mean you're a failure. I failed at making the team for my high school but was blessed with another opportunity that I now could not imagine never being a part of. This experience marked the beginning of my maturation as well. I now believe that a failure could be a blessing in disguise.