You Don't Fail, You Learn by Anna

You Don't Fail, You Learn by Anna - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

I have always loved to write, but it was not until recently that I started entering my poetry into contests. After being told by many people that my writing was good and how much they enjoyed it, I had high hopes for being published and starting to make a name for myself. I entered two contests under the guidance of my English teacher, and I was feeling excited because I was confident in my poems and I felt like they were ones I could win with. I heard back from the first contest telling me that I had moved onto their top ten round, and I would be published in their anthology. I was ecstatic, this was my first step towards achieving one of my dreams and it only made me more confident that I would do just as well in the second contest. Unfortunately this feeling of confidence did not last long because only a few weeks later I got an email from the second contest. They told me that since there was such a limited number of spaces available, they were not able to advance all of the talented poets who entered. I was one of those who did not advance, and this hit me hard. A rejection like this was a huge deal to me because I want to pursue writing in college, so thinking that what I wrote wasn’t good made me question whether or not I should continue with my dream. I felt like a failure, but even though it felt like it to me, not making it onto the next round of the contest was not the end of the world.

Most of my lesson from not winning the contest came from my mom’s blunt, but truthful, words. She told me that if I was going to get that upset and dejected every time I was told I wasn’t good enough, or didn’t win a contest, then I would spend a lot of time being upset. The best thing I could do for myself would be to accept that I cannot win everything, and I just need to keep trying and push myself forward. She was right, I couldn’t question my dream every time something didn’t go my way because I would never be able to improve my writing if I was always doubting it. Although I shouldn’t spend all my time wallowing in self-pity, I could still take a step back and look at what I was writing to see if I truly felt that it was the best it could be, which means that whenever I do a paper, or a project, I will spend a little extra time making sure that I am completely satisfied with the way it turned out. Mostly though, I was able to improve my ability to just let go and not take rejection so personally. All writing is subjective, and just because one person is not a fan of what I write does not mean that it isn’t good, it just means that it didn’t suit the personal taste of that person. I should never question my dream just because someone else doesn’t like it, and I learned that I should take rejection as a learning opportunity to step back, reassess, and work twice as hard to make my dream a reality.