I was wondering if anyone could help me spot out some errors / improve some aspects of my essay.
The prompt is, "Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?"
*clack*. The sound of mahjong tiles reverberated through the room, daring me to make my move. My nemesis, whom I had nicknamed King Pong, sat across the table, scrunching his eyebrows. I drew a flower, which prompted me to pick from the wall of game pieces. Carelessly, I tossed the drawn blue eight into the ever-growing pile of tiles, unknowing of my opponents' next move. Immediately, he bellowed, "MAHJONG!" with delight, and slapped the tiles down onto the table. I had been bested. The game had ended so quickly, with no traces of his sneaky victory. My rival's jubilant dance around the hallway was truly a sight to behold, taunting me with aggravating ecstasy. I promised myself never to endure such tomfoolery again, feeling ashamed of my loss.
This event happened months ago. Since then, my losses have multiplied and King Pong seems to have perfected his dance. I hear his jeering voice inside my mind every night, inexorably keeping me awake while plotting winning strategies. I cannot wait until the next time I can try and scrounge out a victory from his devious procedures. I realized that I had acquired a potentially harmful taste for losing against my rival. At first, I had detested failure, and regarded it as a thing to be avoided. However, I gradually noticed that as I played, I would begin to trump players that I had always lost to, and to me this was a sign of progress. This progress culminated into the fateful day when I locked eyes with King Pong during my lunch, daring him to advance.
King Pong pulled out his mahjong set and the piece shuffling commenced. Curious overseers hovered over our dilemma, making guesses on who would win this battle. I invited my nearest friends over to join our table, anxious to begin our match. Eventually, after long rounds of back and forth dueling, I was finally crowned victor of that match. However, it was not time to gloat; I understood that this was the outcome of learning from repeated failures, each closing loopholes in my knowledge of the game. As Bill Gates once said, "It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." Learning through experience and through the letdown of failure proved valuable, but not detrimental, to my goal of conquering my rival in a game of mahjong. I plan on using this knowledge of the lessons of failure to further my prospects in higher education, because through undergoing memorable experiences and failures, I can proceed through my future with not only perspicacious confidence, but also with humble success.
