Failing and Lessons Learned by Sarah

Failing and Lessons Learned by Sarah - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

Nobody wants to be known as a failure because it makes us feel weak, useless, and pathetic. These are very harsh words to be classifying myself as but it’s the truth. When I fail at something I get the feeling that I am not good enough and end up looking at the situation negatively instead of turning it into a positive one. Like many others, I am constantly beating myself up to do better and competing against others who I think are better than me. This doesn’t just happen in school but it also happens outside of it. One thing that I failed at and I clearly remember saying to myself that this is the end of the world, I’m a failure, that was the day I failed my first driver’s test.
It was a Friday afternoon and my drivers test was at 2:30 and I had arrived 30 minutes so I had plenty of time just incase they took me on the road early, which is exactly what they ended up doing. So I was getting in the car as the instructor was explaining how things were going to go. She sounded very strict and her behavior showed like she didn’t want to be there at that particular moment. I knew I had to do EVERYTHING right so she would pass me. I was preparing myself to do parallel parking, which if I do say so myself I did excellent on. Then it was time for the scariest part, driving on the road. It started off okay, at least that’s what I thought but she ended up telling me to head back to where we started, which was the building I had entered. It was time for her to tell me if I had passed or failed. She starts to open her mouth and the words that I didn't want to hear start coming out of it. She announces that I needed to practice more in a tone that I didn't appreciate at all. Maybe it was because I was mad and frustrated but she was being completely rude. Believe it or not I began to cry. I was out of control. I ran after her and I started yelling because I could not have failed! She had a tone of “this is your problem, deal with it” kind of attitude. She seemed like she didn't even care. She explained to me that I didn't turn into the correct lane but instead I got into the lane which cars stop in to rest. I took it in McKinney where I wasn't used to the roads so how was I supposed to know that that was wrong, that made me even more angry. I cried all the way home.
This wasn't supposed to happen, I had practiced and practiced every day and I was prepared to pass. Eventually I figured out that maybe I failed because it was supposed to teach me a lesson for what not to do next time. Of course that was it! Failing my driver's test taught me two things, one what I need to work on to pass the test and the other was that not everyone is as nice as you want them to be. I have carried these two lessons with me ever since. This really helped me through my next driving test which was two weeks later and I passed with flying colors.