Failure doesn't define you by Lauren

Failure doesn't define you by Lauren - March 2019 Scholarship Essay

In life, you fail at various things, something so small as an outfit failure to not getting your dream job. The subject of failure can have various meanings to different people, we all look at it a different way and take away different things from it. Failure can bring various negative thoughts to your head. It can block the positives thoughts and hold you back from moving forward. Many successful people in the world have failed more times than they can count and now are millionaires. We fear not succeeding because of the ones around us, disappointing yourself, family, or friends, only knocks you down lower. How do we get past the fear, how do we venture out and try new things, talk to new people, try new foods, fail a test and move on, stand up for yourself and speak up. I wish these were questions that could simply be googled, instead we face these head-on; and have to make the decision on how to deal with them with knowing you cannot get away from the consequence.
As a freshman in college, I’ve had my fair share of times at failing just like many around me. I would say starting high school I started to experience the “bigger” failure moments. Not making every sports team I tried out for, some job interview I went to I did not always get the job, going through so many stages of losing close friends, and failed many tests. At the time when something like this happened, I thought it was the end of the world. Terrified at what came next, I focused so much on avoiding failure because I did not want people to look at me and give labels. Today and many years later, I can say I was completely wrong. Who cares if you fail that biology test that doesn’t mean you are dumb or did not get that super fun summer job, there are so many other jobs. What matters is how you took it and what you did following the failure. I encourage you to do what makes you happy and if that means failing a million times than do it. Life is so short and as cliché, as it sounds failure makes you grow as a person in a positive way. Although you don’t always have full control on the times you fail in life and as frustrating as it can be it is such a small bump in the road in the bigger picture. Which is why I would tell the incoming freshmen that failure does not define you it only shapes you and to take what you can from these four years of high school and prosper as an individual growing into a better human daily.