When I was in kindergarten I thought that not coloring inside lines was a failure because I could not do it. Boy, high school has changed my perspective of failure. As a kid, I always thought that the little things like not being able to make it past that third monkey bar, or not being able to spell the specific word my teacher was explaining was failing myself, but as I got older I started to learn more on what failure is. The definition of failure is omission of occurrence or performance. In my case, my failure in life occurred my junior year.

Going into my junior year, I was blinded by the social aspect of school. Juniors in high school are known to be upper classmen, and I think I let that get into my head a little too much, especially in my English class. I failed to be the best student I could be in English class. I failed my teacher by thinking it was his fault why I was failing when it was mine. But I did not let that stop me from being social and still being able to go to sporting events and playing sports myself. The number one person I was failing was not my parents or my English teacher, but myself. It affected my lifestyle at home and at school. When I would come home from school, my parents would always be on me to do my homework and yelling at me as if I was five years old, not like I were a junior in high school. At school when my friends would talk about their grades and how well they were doing, I would not say anything because I was too embarrassed to tell them that I was failing. It made me feel like I could not talk to my friends as if I were the odd one out in the group. I could not let that effect me for the rest of my junior year, so I had to take action in raising my grade and stop failing myself.

As my junior year came to an end, I had to do something about my grade, so I took initiative to talk to my counselor and asked what I could do. She told me about an online summer school program, and I did it. Sure, it took up most of my summer, but it was my own fault. If I just had my work done from the beginning, I would not have been in that situation and would have been able to have fun with my friends over summer break.

Every mistake I make is part of life, and I learn from it. God did not make us all perfect for a reason; we have to learn from what we did wrong and use it in the future. I am not perfect, and I did learn from my failure. I have to know when to settle down and when to do my work whether it is for a job I was doing or school work because in the end it is all going to benefit me. If I could go back and time and change what I did wrong I would, but I just do not have the power to do that, so I learn from what I did wrong and move on in life. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and move on.