Bigger and Better by Emily

Bigger and Better by Emily - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

It never feels good to fail. That's a given. In fact, sometimes it can be so painful, so embarrassing, and so discouraging that it seems as though the entire world is just screaming at you to give up. The hard part is trying to look at that failure from a different perspective. Sometimes, failure better prepares you for opportunities that may come along. In my case, this is what I believe happened.
I am entering my senior year in the Business Technology program at a tiny school in Massachusetts. Through McCann, I was given the opportunity to participate in a Career and Technical Student Organization called Business Professionals of America. This organization has been the highlight of my three completed years of high school. The people that I have met throughout the state - and country - and the opportunities provided to me have developed my character more than I ever thought possible entering high school. Above all, BPA has taught me to accept failure.
During my junior year, I decided to campaign for a position on the State Officer Team. I felt confident as March rolled around, bringing with it the State Leadership Conference. As I campaigned and competed, I felt like I was on top of the world. I was doing something that I never thought I would have the confidence to do. That weekend is a prime example of my previous statement about developing my character - entering high school, I never would have thought in a million years that I would speak in front of 600 people. That was the stuff in my nightmares.
On Sunday night (after delivering my speech, and not in my underwear), when I found out whether or not I made the state officer team, I was met with heartbreak. I didn't make it. My two advisers, to whom I owe everything, sat me down and talked to me. They made me realize something: It wasn't anything that I had done. I was from a tiny school in Western Massachusetts with a chapter of 14 people, competing against candidates from massive schools with chapters of upwards of 60 people. Those chapters all voted for the candidates from their school, completely blotting out our votes. So I went home, still crestfallen, and only slightly consoled.
I barely had any time to think about this failure - no time to mull it over and beat myself up about it. The day after I got home from BPA, I had to compete at SkillsUSA Districts, where I placed first in Technical Computer Applications. As I stood on the podium with a boy I didn't know and a girl in the grade below me, something clicked. This was why I didn't make state office. I was headed to the state, and eventually national level for SkillsUSA - trips that I would've had to forfeit, had I achieved my desired position. I realized that, as a person who, admittedly, lets stress itself stress me out, I would have been put in a position where I would not have placed 5th in the nation for Administrative Support Concepts, or 4th for Advanced Spreadsheet Applications, or 15th for Technical Computer Applications. I would have had to sacrifice not only these achievements, but the experiences that accompanied them.
So no, failure is not a word that tastes good. It has the most bitter taste in the world. I'm not going to preach about how there's no such thing as failure or that failure isn't an option - because failure does exist, and it is an option. The important point is that, when failure is the outcome, that it is taken with the knowledge that there are greater opportunities to come.