My Greatest Failure
"What has been your greatest failure?"
The utility of this question should have been limited to discerning whether or not I was a worthy candidate for the "Ms. Intellectual" award at our school's farewell, but I haven't stopped thinking about this question.
When I had been asked this question, I had to think off the top of my head. Certainly I could not say I did not have any failures; I am far from perfect and I never want to lose sight of that. I ended up saying that being a pushover was my biggest failure. It's a good answer, if I do say so myself, especially off the top of my head. It's right up there among my failures.
The thing is, it's really hard to put a finger on what my greatest failure might be. The reason is that I'm biased.
I catch myself saying that I hate myself quite often, though in jest, and I balance it out by telling myself that I love myself, too. I haven't delved too deeply into self-hatred; I work very hard to ensure that I know I'm loved and that I'm good enough for the people around me who love me. I'm very happy with who I am and how far I've come, and that prevents me from ever thinking I've failed somewhere. So for the past month, I've been thinking, and thinking, and thinking. And what I've arrived at is the following.
My final year of high school saw a fundamental change in me. I use the word "fundamental" to get two ideas across:
1. That I didn't even realize this change was happening in me till the year ended, and
2. That this change is one that goes against everything I've been taught by my family over all of my schooling.
As I said, I didn't even realize this change was happening in me for a long time. Because of this, I can't give a walkthrough as accurately as I should. I can, however, narrate some scattered incidents that will build up to a conclusion. So moving forward, please remember why I used the word "fundamental".
Incident one – June/July 2017
A teacher of mine says to me, "You are not expected to make mistakes."
Incident two – June/July 2017
Aforementioned teacher tells me to obtain a perfect score in the finals, which at this point are at least five months away. With the knowledge that the subject he teaches me is my weakest and least favorite subject (not math), I reply with a sincere, "I'll try." It's not good enough for my teacher, who tells me that I have to get a perfect score. The tone of his voice and the pressure he's putting on me makes me lightly and respectfully brush him aside and leave the conversation. My family and I laugh about it afterwards.
Incident three – July 31, 2017
This one comes with a bit of context. As part of the student council, the council members and I had organized a conference for teenagers and their parents at our school. After the conference, we had to sit together to discuss what we had learned from the experience. I had assumed it would not takemore than one period, but it ended up taking too long. I gave myself the deadline of one more period to sit through the discussion. When the bell rang, I tried to politely excuse myself from the conversation. It backfired, to say the least. I essentially committed a faux pas. The whole fiasco made me more soft-spoken than I already was, which was bad, because now I could not say things that needed to be said.
Incident four – August 2017
This happened during the time I supposedly had vertigo. The night before my first periodical exam, my parents and I had gone out to dinner. It should have been great, but I kept feeling dizzy and nauseous. Later, these symptoms turned out to be manifestations of my anxiety about the exam, something that had never happened to me before.
Incident five – November 2017 - January 2018
My mood and performance in school kept slipping. Dizzy spells occurred more and more often. More than once I felt like I would faint and drop to the floor, but by some miracle I handled myself. At this time, I was still juggling my health, academics, the student council, and extracurriculars such as writing a script for the school's annual function. Amidst all of this, November 28 was the last straw. I had to be brought home from school because of sickness. It was during this time I started wondering whether I would even pass board exams this year. Passing an exam was never an issue for me – this was an all-time low.
Incident six – February 2018
Despite all of my anxieties, I had managed to submit everything I was required to submit, completed all practice practicals and everything. Now all I could do was study and wait for practical exams, the first one being one weekend away. At some point, I happened upon an epiphany – what am I doing? What the heck am I doing? I'm studying for an exam when I've never studied for anything before. I'm expecting a perfect score when no one around me expects it, certainly not the people whom I hold in the highest regard. When did this happen? How did this happen?
All to no avail, though; I felt the symptoms of anxiety right before the physics practical exam, despite all my hard work to ensure nothing like this happens again.
Incident seven – March 2018
While I have mostly risen above all that has happened, the anxiety still stuck as I appeared for my boards. I felt sick the night before every exam except English – despite having reached the conclusion of all these incidents weeks ago.
Most of my anxieties point towards something common – What if I can't make it? What if I fail? What if my work is less than the best?
All of these questions, in turn, point towards the heart of the matter: My greatest failure is the fact that I have learned to be afraid of making mistakes. It shakes me deeply to my core, and it pains me, but it makes horrible sense.
Why else have I not danced after seventh grade? Why else have I been relieved to drop something I wasn't good at, but could always improve?
When I shared this with my father, he told me that when you start to fear making mistakes, you stop learning anything new. You become stagnant. You rust over.
I wonder where I've seen that before? Did I not write about rusting over when I was sixteen years old?
I realize why now.
That piece of writing comes from a time when I had just given my first SAT. It put me in touch with my 12-year-old self: my seventh-grader self. She had just started discovering herself, her affinity for languages, her passion for science, the joy she felt when she danced. She acted in plays– she tried it all. And when I looked back, she had faded into a distant memory I have no means to relive.
Fearing mistakes is well and good when the stakes are high, but my fear prevented me from trying anything new. I play my guitar less often than I should; I have been reduced to be the girl who wants to be an astrophysicist and can write and read and — what the heck — sing. Sometimes it feels like that's all I can do, that there's nothing more to me. I'm learning my lessons the hard way.
The utility of this question should have been limited to discerning whether or not I was a worthy candidate for the "Ms. Intellectual" award at our school's farewell, but I haven't stopped thinking about this question.
When I had been asked this question, I had to think off the top of my head. Certainly I could not say I did not have any failures; I am far from perfect and I never want to lose sight of that. I ended up saying that being a pushover was my biggest failure. It's a good answer, if I do say so myself, especially off the top of my head. It's right up there among my failures.
The thing is, it's really hard to put a finger on what my greatest failure might be. The reason is that I'm biased.
I catch myself saying that I hate myself quite often, though in jest, and I balance it out by telling myself that I love myself, too. I haven't delved too deeply into self-hatred; I work very hard to ensure that I know I'm loved and that I'm good enough for the people around me who love me. I'm very happy with who I am and how far I've come, and that prevents me from ever thinking I've failed somewhere. So for the past month, I've been thinking, and thinking, and thinking. And what I've arrived at is the following.
My final year of high school saw a fundamental change in me. I use the word "fundamental" to get two ideas across:
1. That I didn't even realize this change was happening in me till the year ended, and
2. That this change is one that goes against everything I've been taught by my family over all of my schooling.
As I said, I didn't even realize this change was happening in me for a long time. Because of this, I can't give a walkthrough as accurately as I should. I can, however, narrate some scattered incidents that will build up to a conclusion. So moving forward, please remember why I used the word "fundamental".
Incident one – June/July 2017
A teacher of mine says to me, "You are not expected to make mistakes."
Incident two – June/July 2017
Aforementioned teacher tells me to obtain a perfect score in the finals, which at this point are at least five months away. With the knowledge that the subject he teaches me is my weakest and least favorite subject (not math), I reply with a sincere, "I'll try." It's not good enough for my teacher, who tells me that I have to get a perfect score. The tone of his voice and the pressure he's putting on me makes me lightly and respectfully brush him aside and leave the conversation. My family and I laugh about it afterwards.
Incident three – July 31, 2017
This one comes with a bit of context. As part of the student council, the council members and I had organized a conference for teenagers and their parents at our school. After the conference, we had to sit together to discuss what we had learned from the experience. I had assumed it would not takemore than one period, but it ended up taking too long. I gave myself the deadline of one more period to sit through the discussion. When the bell rang, I tried to politely excuse myself from the conversation. It backfired, to say the least. I essentially committed a faux pas. The whole fiasco made me more soft-spoken than I already was, which was bad, because now I could not say things that needed to be said.
Incident four – August 2017
This happened during the time I supposedly had vertigo. The night before my first periodical exam, my parents and I had gone out to dinner. It should have been great, but I kept feeling dizzy and nauseous. Later, these symptoms turned out to be manifestations of my anxiety about the exam, something that had never happened to me before.
Incident five – November 2017 - January 2018
My mood and performance in school kept slipping. Dizzy spells occurred more and more often. More than once I felt like I would faint and drop to the floor, but by some miracle I handled myself. At this time, I was still juggling my health, academics, the student council, and extracurriculars such as writing a script for the school's annual function. Amidst all of this, November 28 was the last straw. I had to be brought home from school because of sickness. It was during this time I started wondering whether I would even pass board exams this year. Passing an exam was never an issue for me – this was an all-time low.
Incident six – February 2018
Despite all of my anxieties, I had managed to submit everything I was required to submit, completed all practice practicals and everything. Now all I could do was study and wait for practical exams, the first one being one weekend away. At some point, I happened upon an epiphany – what am I doing? What the heck am I doing? I'm studying for an exam when I've never studied for anything before. I'm expecting a perfect score when no one around me expects it, certainly not the people whom I hold in the highest regard. When did this happen? How did this happen?
All to no avail, though; I felt the symptoms of anxiety right before the physics practical exam, despite all my hard work to ensure nothing like this happens again.
Incident seven – March 2018
While I have mostly risen above all that has happened, the anxiety still stuck as I appeared for my boards. I felt sick the night before every exam except English – despite having reached the conclusion of all these incidents weeks ago.
Most of my anxieties point towards something common – What if I can't make it? What if I fail? What if my work is less than the best?
All of these questions, in turn, point towards the heart of the matter: My greatest failure is the fact that I have learned to be afraid of making mistakes. It shakes me deeply to my core, and it pains me, but it makes horrible sense.
Why else have I not danced after seventh grade? Why else have I been relieved to drop something I wasn't good at, but could always improve?
When I shared this with my father, he told me that when you start to fear making mistakes, you stop learning anything new. You become stagnant. You rust over.
I wonder where I've seen that before? Did I not write about rusting over when I was sixteen years old?
I realize why now.
That piece of writing comes from a time when I had just given my first SAT. It put me in touch with my 12-year-old self: my seventh-grader self. She had just started discovering herself, her affinity for languages, her passion for science, the joy she felt when she danced. She acted in plays– she tried it all. And when I looked back, she had faded into a distant memory I have no means to relive.
Fearing mistakes is well and good when the stakes are high, but my fear prevented me from trying anything new. I play my guitar less often than I should; I have been reduced to be the girl who wants to be an astrophysicist and can write and read and — what the heck — sing. Sometimes it feels like that's all I can do, that there's nothing more to me. I'm learning my lessons the hard way.
So, yes, I blame being stagnant on my experiences over the past five years, the past year especially. I have no better explanation for any of this, and in my opinion, this is the perfect answer to the question of what has been my greatest failure.
Original date of writing: March 29, 2018
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