Failure is No Stranger to Me by Keegan

Failure is No Stranger to Me by Keegan - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

I have failed at a lot of things. I failed many of my high school classes. I failed at friendships. I failed at a decent relationship with my parents. I have failed at some of my employment. Most of all, I have failed myself.

Most of my failures are because of the way I have failed myself. I have lacked self-confidence. I did not always believe in myself. My affinity for failure was so acute, that I was sent away for two years to attend therapeutic boarding school; I was just not succeeding at anything. Therefore, the biggest failure I have had to overcome has been to believe in myself and my abilities.

I had to hit rock bottom before I was able to see that my failures were coming from me. I tried to blame my failures on everybody and everything, everything but myself. Hitting rock bottom meant being in a situation where I could not attend regular high school, I had no friends left, my parents were terrified to leave me alone for fear of what I might do, I could not hold a job – I just sat in my room all day being destructive to myself and completely non-functional. That is rock bottom.

How did I get past all of this? I was enrolled in a wilderness therapy program where I wasn't allowed a single possession of my own. The other students and I weren't allowed to know where we were, how far we were hiking on any given day, or even what time it was. I had lost everything. I was lost in the woods, lost in my life, and that realization hit me hard. Ironically, being lost in the woods gave me an opportunity to regain what I'd lost at home. Without the repetitive chaos of modern society, I developed vision full of clarity that allowed me to confront my depression and affinity for failure, and find out how to move past it. I met new friends, my relationship with my family improved drastically, and I found acceptance that allowed me to become social and outgoing once again. In the bright spark of a coal, born from a bow drill fire set engulfing a nest of juniper bark in flame, I rekindled my own flame of confidence. In a necklace of beads made of stones and bones and ghost beads from a juniper tree, I recognized my creativity. Hiking up a mountain, motivation I hadn't felt in ages flowed like a river, eroding the boulders I'd allowed to block that flood. Reaching an overlook where I could see beautiful mountains for hundreds of miles embedded a passion for the wilderness that I still carry with me.

My wilderness therapy program is what had the biggest influence on me. Since I left that program, my biggest desire has been to return to the wilderness and guide others, to help them find what they have lost. When I lost my sense of self, it was given back to me through the whispers of wind in the trees and the quiet breath of open space, and I believe anybody that struggles with questions of who they are or what they are meant for can find answers in the same way, by listening to nature. The excellent therapists helped me to reach deep inside myself and use nature as a way to soothe my soul. They taught me that if I could survive in wilderness conditions, using my own resources, I could survive anywhere. They used nature and wilderness as a way to teach me how to believe in myself again.

It wasn’t easy after that. Eventually I had to return to the “real world”. I still struggled a lot, but little by little I learned how to draw upon the resources and skills that I learned in wilderness therapy to make it in the real world. Now I am enrolled in college and I never would have ever believed that I could do this! I am really proud of how I overcame my biggest failure, myself.