My Family's Role in Overcoming Failure

I’ll be honest: I had never dealt with failure before 7th grade. Sure, I had gotten below-average test scores and played a wrong chord in more than one piano recital, but I had never experienced real failure, the type that makes you question your abilities and makes you wonder if you should even keep going. That is, until high school came along.

My application to Uni consisted of a take of the SSAT, weeks of essay revisions, a retake of the SSAT, and lots of emotional investment. In April, the paper envelopes started arriving, and with them came excited cheers and plans for the future. My closest friends began anticipating their graduation a year early. One of them told me that you would know whether you were accepted before opening your letter, because the package would be heavy with registration sheets. My yellow envelope came after school one day, and inside it was a single sheet of paper. 

That first time I encountered real failure, I went home and sobbed for an hour. My mom sitting with me on the living room sofa, I let my disappointment out onto an innocent couch pillow. The world suddenly felt unfair. Why did I get turned down, after investing so much into my application? How could I get rejected, even though I cared the most? It was a stab to the gut to see something I cared so much about crumble with one piece of paper.

 As the rest of middle school flew by, I slowly got over it. Getting turned down shifted from life-ending to merely disappointing as graduation drew closer. I submitted another application and hoped for the best, but it got buried in the back of my mind as I went to Central open houses, registered for classes, and picked out all of the clubs I would join. I had already filled out the paperwork for 9th grade when my mom got a phone call one day, telling me I was accepted into Uni.

Thinking the hardest part was behind me, I showed up to high school feeling on top of the world. I signed up for swim team, started a club, found myself a research position. But before I knew it, I was getting disqualified from races, seeing club programs get rejected by schools, and being suspended from the lab while they sorted out paperwork. I would love to tell you that I learned a life lesson the day we got that phone call, never once considering giving up since, but that would be a lie. Every difficult swim set that I couldn’t finish, every email sent without a reply, every obstacle disguised as paperwork—every micro failure accumulates in my mind, until I’m questioning whether there’s even a point of continuing to try.

When doubt starts to override my determination, sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is the people around me. When I’m wondering if I should even try to make the state relay after butchering that dive at last week’s meet, my mom reminds me of the personal record I got at sectionals last year. When I’m wondering whether I should even contact another organization after all of those emails that received no responses, my dad helps me write another draft. When I get home after a particularly defeating day, my dog is there to raise my spirits with his pouncing and tail wags.

All along, my family has cheered me on. But they aren’t just spectators rooting from the stands; they’re scoring wins alongside me on the field. Everything that I’ve achieved was the work of everyone else around me—their sacrifice of waking up at 6 am to get me to morning practices, their time taken out of a workday to help me polish up an email, their lost hours of sleep from putting out mini fires with me. I would never be where I am now without my family’s support and encouragement. Everything I’ve accomplished, we’ve accomplished together.