When I opened the email of my exam results yesterday, I didn’t do as well as I thought I might have, and, of course, I was upset.
After a day of thinking about it and my initial dejection, I’ve come to realise that it’s been an especially hard year for me with many obstacles, but I’ve faced them head-on and made it to the end of this year’s journey.
I did well and although I’m not top, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’ve worked hard, passed, joined basketball, made friends and had fun with them.
I know while you’re in high school or university/college it can seem like study is the only thing that’s important and what defines you, but it’s not. As long as you pass, it’s important that you know you’ve tried your best while having fun and enjoying yourself because the memories you can make with your friends now will last forever.
As one of my best friends who I met and got to know better this year put it, “don’t be too hard on yourself” and “I’m just glad I can spend second year with you”.
So join a sport (you don’t have to be good at it or have played it before, there’s heaps of social teams!), pick up a new hobby or revisit an old one (like magic tricks for me!), go out with your friends and enjoy yourself. Let what you want define you.
If you fail or don’t do as well as you expected, know that you tried and you’ve learnt something from it. This year, I learnt the tenacity to get through any obstacle, I learnt that it’s okay to fail, I learnt that study isn’t the only thing in life and I am allowed to have fun, I learnt that you don’t have to be the best to have fun, I learnt that it’s okay to not be the best and you can always work towards being better at anything, I learnt the study techniques that didn’t work for me personally and new study techniques, and I learnt how to be a better friend.
I learnt that it’s okay to be despondent about not doing well at something as long as you pick yourself up and start again, the next time even wiser.
"If you fear failure, you will never go anywhere.” - Unknown