Dear Mary,
For me, it’s tough to get this awful experience off my head for the time being,
but I am trying, like I did before. You said it right, the teacher shouldn’t mean it. It must be due to something else that he treated me like that, since once he was always encouraging and helpful.
How I can deal with it? Long before, whenever failure befell on me, I always turned others to blame rather than myself. It was silly, wasn’t it? I allowed myself to linger on the failure itself, and failed to think about how to change the
thing for better.
It didn’t change until two years ago. I signed up for an exam related to my major but failed. As I walked out from the examination room, tears run down my cheeks. Seeing me crying, my friend held me in his arms. He comforted me that everything would be ok.
Then he started to tell me how he went through his failures, which were many, in
the old days. He said that god is equal to everyone: when he shuts one door, he
will open another. Though I can’t take them totally, his words still worked.
In fact, later on when I calmed down, I realized that I deserved the failure. Seeing through the happening, I found I didn’t manage to do well many aspects where I should. Chance is given to a full-prepared man. If you don’t get everything ready, on what success should come to you?
So taking my friend’s advice, I laid out a piece of paper and named out all the
aspects that contributed to the failure. Then I worked on the aspects one by one. Half a year later, when I took the exam again, I succeeded.
The experience told me that it was no use crying over spilt milk. If we look
at it squarely, failure itself can serve as a valuable experience. As we are willing to face it and deal with it positively, the failure will help us find
our less satisfactory aspects. By remedying these aspects, the failure, thus, channels us into success.
So did this experience. Before taking the speech contest, I was confident in my
English, too confident, actually. I deemed myself capable to win the contest, without thinking that speaking on the stage was a very challenging job. I just thought since others could do it, I was no exception.
My teacher’s word gave me a blow. Later talking on the stage gave me another. Disregard those discouraging words by my teacher, as I retrospect, I see that I should take the most part of the responsibility. I went a little far, that is, I
valued myself overly. Confidence is good, but unless it complies with well
preparation and solid knowledge, it doesn’t guarantee success.
Dear Mary, what you said is also try-worthy, though I haven’t tried it yet. It
should be. To come to an end, ways vary from person to person. But in general, they are all based on that we should be self-assured, and moreover, be persistent
in what we are striving for. On this precondition, when god shuts one door, I believe, he will surely open another.
Sincerely yours,
Caroline