The Reward of Failure by Sydney

The Reward of Failure by Sydney - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

Failure, to some degree, is an inevitable part of life. I have always hoped for the best throughout my life, but sometimes the best is not always the case. Through my many run-ins with failure, one event in particular has stuck out for me and has taught me the value of taking my time as well as how to never give up, even when the going gets tough.

Picture this, a fourteen year old girl from a small town in Wisconsin, in New York City for the first time, trying to navigate her way through the elaborate lines of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's subway system. Feeling anxious already, that was me. I had studied the rather complex Subway map with my mom for what felt like hours, and once we finally felt like we knew where we were going, we descended into 42nd Street subway station. We hoped, through our well thought out planning and directions, to arrive at the 72nd Street station in the Upper West Side. We swiped our cards and followed the signs to the Red 1 landing platform, and let me tell you for someone with no public transportation experience the Time Square Subway station is not exactly the easiest thing to navigate. After some time we finally found the landing platform, and my mom and I looked at each other with a sigh of relief, beginning our climb down the stairs, to the track. It was a short wait for the train to arrive and once it did we climbed on, bags in hand, with smiles plastered onto our faces, knowing we had accomplished our goal without trouble. The doors closed and the train began to move, not long after, a ladies voice boomed over the speaker in the car “Next stop 34th street Penn Station”, my mom and I swung our heads toward each other, eyes wide, chins dropped, we were going in the wrong direction. Once the train stopped at Penn Station we clambered our way out of the car and onto the landing landing platform. Both my mom and I were shocked, we were both confident in our directions, I then glanced up at the sign hanging above the track “Downtown Red 1 2 3”, in our excitement of finding the correct line platform we neglected to notice the direction the train was traveling in. Not only did I feel extremely foolish for messing up on such an easy thing, I felt like I had failed my first initiation step of this massive city, the place I would spend the next three weeks in. Now, my mom and I did eventually find the correct platform and reached our destination of 72nd street, but the failure I had experienced made me realize a few things and, made me a better person in the end.

Such a little mistake made this failure so much worse for me, and it made me realize the importance of paying attention to even the little details. Prior to this experience I would often glance through things whether it be instructions or papers for school, missing the little details in the process. Now, I feel like I have become more aware of the little details which has, in turn, improved my end products. This experience also taught me the importance of being resilient throughout life. We could have simply given up and taken a cab, but we chose to dust it off, figure it out, get on the correct train and master the subway system. This lesson has been extremely valuable to me, seeing as I had been prone to giving up when things would not always go my way. I feel now that I am doing a better job of pushing through times of trouble and finding other ways to make things work. Even though this experience was rather embarrassing for me, it taught me a great deal along with making me become more aware, more resilient and improving my overall view at life.