How would you feel if, one time in your life, you gave your very best and end up being beaten? Or offered everything for the very first time and losing it all?
I used to listen to woes from graduating students, who, for strenuously trying to reach a passing mark, openly shared with me bits and pieces of their struggles. As a former educator, more often than not, I heard stories of how parents laboriously produced a large sum of money for tuition fees. The stories also centered in realities like, getting over their lives when failures start to bump into.
Indeed, a grade of “failure” punctures the heart particularly if you think you have given everything in order to pass a subject. Even more painful if you know you do not deserve the failure at all. Although the experience is not unique in oneself, still failure brings you an indescribable distress and a tragic reminder, which you pray would not last long.
Failing a subject, however, must not be rationalized as something like you were taking it for granted. No matter how much effort you did, it just didn’t reach certain standards. As they say, the best was not just enough.
But in the grand finale, you must stand triumphant. You might have been deprived of some bliss here and there or rejected in a way; nevertheless, it could just be a signal to discover other skills you possess. And please stop the recurring why thoughts—why me, why I took this, etc.
Forget people’s reaction to your failure. You can never recover from pain if you delve too much of what others think. Rise from the wobble and get out from the pit of defeat. Remember, you can never turn back the time to heal your wounded existence.
A priest had this remark about failure: “Do not worry, when you reach the gates of heaven, God will never ask you if you graduated on time or not. When you have done your best, with all honesty and with your heart: that is the most essential thing”.
It is so simple a remark yet it gives you big hopes.
by Eric Ariel L. Salas
