The Art of Failure by Omotola

The Art of Failure by Omotola - May 2022 Scholarship Essay

You know, I’m pretty glad I get to type my college essays, or else I’d have to pity the poor soul of the admissions officer who’d have to decipher my size 3.0 chicken scratch. Since elementary, I’ve been famous for my laughably bad handwriting, usually drawing the ire of teachers on exams and hesitation of peers when checking homework. It was as if my words are encrypted for only my eyes to understand. But in the spirit of self-improvement over quarantine, I took up the task of learning cursive.

Amazon workbook in hand, I channeled an internal montage and set about writing like the greats. But the montages always make it look easier. My abysmal hand-eye coordination toyed with my patience, testing how many times I would slip outside of the dotted lines before swiveling my chair away from my desk. And when finishing off another illegible scribble, I’d stare at my hands in confusion, as if they’re the ones that failed me. Frustration slowly started building up as I couldn't understand why something seemingly as simple as handwriting didn't come easily. How could I possibly survive being on my own in a college that demands a whole new skill set if I couldn't even do this? The golden child within me that made fast success and impressing others the standard was being attacked every second as the confidence I had in myself dwindled. I whined to my friends, groaning about slow progress and how magnifying glasses were forever intertwined with my submissions.

One of them, completely over my melodrama, joked that “there’s art in failing too, Tola.”

While I rolled my eyes then, those words hit me again late at night: the art of failure. Why should I only praise the final product and not the process leading up to it? What value is success if I don’t have the background to procure more? Every time I messed up, I acknowledged an incorrect method, my degree of expertise increasing with every redo. Sure, my penmanship wasn’t the best, but it was better, and now I have strategies for print handwriting and artistry. I’ve learned to embrace setbacks because they also build me.

Now, while trudging through this college application process, I’m instructed to think ahead, internalizing the reality of potentially failing a test, getting my major wrong, or picking the hardest professor. But isn’t the purpose of college to explore all of a student’s avenues of interest? To channel childhood dreams into reality or alter them to fit the adults we are today? It’s very easy to take the first failure that University may throw at me as a sign that I’m not that smart or worthy of being here for not immediately grasping success. But college isn’t designed to be easy, and I can’t expect everything in my life to simply fall into place just because of a high GPA in high school. Life can’t be defined by what comes easily but instead by what is done after things get hard. And with the understanding that additional help, struggle, and persistent studying may come with my long journey of education, I’ve already put myself on a better pathway than those of my other high-achieving peers.

My penmanship may not be winning awards but the deconstruction of unrealistic expectations is invaluable for my future.