Embarrassing Moment

In society today students in general become lazier and procrastinate more than they have in the past. This laziness could cause the student to fail a course, and perhaps not graduate. However, if the appropriate time and effort is made toward anything and in particular studying, success has become a realistic goal. In my case, it all occurred on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009, it was suppose to be one of the happiest days of my life, but in fact, it turned out to be the sourest experiences I had to go through.

Going back through the memories, I began the day as usual, waking up in the morning, having breakfast, and getting ready to go to school with all my friends to collect the results of the baccalaureate. I remember hearing the door bell, my friend Simon has just arrived to pick me up and give me a ride to school. I remember how excited we all were, singing, chanting, and exchanging ideas on how we were going to spend our summer vacation, not knowing what was going to happen next.

When arriving to school there was a gathering in front of the principal’s office, the school administrative team was getting ready to post the results on the board in alphabetical order at noon. I could feel the vibe; everyone around me was happy, anxious, and exited for the event. Thirty minutes later, the principal walked right by us holding a stack of papers in his hand. At the moment the only thing that could catch my full attention was to see my grades.

Trying to push my way through the front of the crowd, I recall seeing the facial expression my friend Karim had. He had passed and was jumping and celebrating in the middle of the crowd. Still not knowing my results, I already had gone through different emotions in a very short time. I was happy, exited and feeling a little bit dizzy; not until one of my school mates gave me a pitiful look, in which you know deep inside that something is wrong, I tried to convince myself that it is all in my head and that it wasn’t true.

Finally, there I was standing in front of the list going through the names; I see my name and a “Failed” next to it. Refusing to believe the outcome, I blinked my eyes and read it again to make sure that It was me not somebody else. A big moment of silence followed, I couldn’t hear anything else except my heart beating at an unusual rapid pace. I became extremely nervous, I started sweating, my legs started shaking and I felt dizzier than before.

I felt upset, unmotivated, shameful, sad, angry, and jealous. All what I could think about is how did I fail? And most importantly, how I am going to convey the news to my parents? What explanations and excuses l have to come up with? Is it typical teenager behavior? There could have been many things to blame for my failure, such as feeling of helplessness, lack of personal responsibility, inadequacy of my parents, TV, and video games and especially the influence of bad friends.

I have the tendency of not letting go of things, which is why I simply accepted the facts and commenced immediately at drafting an action plan so that it never occurs again. As Professor Robert Sutton stated ((Stanford University)), “when failure happens, the most important thing is to have an after event review to provoke sufficiently deep thinking — whether you talk about successes or failures is less important” Learning from Success and Failure, Monday June 4, 2007.

Although, I couldn’t help noticing people’s expression when telling them that I failed, I battled very hard, I always felt ashamed. I entered the house and requested a serious talk with my parents about the results. They got mad. I couldn’t stand watching the disappointment on my mother’s eyes as they watered. Although, they made sure to punish me for the entire summer; I made sure to appeal my case and expressed that I absolutely took note what I made them go through.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I had all what I needed to succeed in my life; and wonderful supportive parents. That helps me in every step of my successful life. It is true, everything is a learning experience; regardless if it is good or bad. There is always something to be learned. But all learning’s are not equal. I have found that if someone is going to spend his or her time pondering the past, focus on the wins not the losses. In conclusion, I am confident that lessons learned from doing well; arms you with a better chance at continuing toward your path of success.