The pain of falling
Facile victory gives many in this world no satisfaction, but it is by far an easier pill to swallow compared to the bitterness of defeat. When you think you have put out what seems an infallable plan; when you performed at the best of your ability; when you have defied all physical and mental boundaries known to yourself, and yet you still fall. What then?
after laying out the rudiments of our concert proposal, it seems as though the proposal was acceptable. In the end, we faced a white-wash. Puerile were we when we came up with the proposal, and the lack in consideration of the consequences if our proposal were to succeed ascribed to our eventually weak plan. The paucity of our scope of thought put us to the sword as we failed to impress on the strength and coherence of our plan. Even though we were sedulous, the plan was incongruous. A ‘two times tight slap’ by our teachers brought us back to ground, and made us realise the dangers of our ambitious endeavour, the need to edify our proposal so as to cover up the potential pitfalls. The morale of the planning team is shakened.
The fall is more painful when it comes to sports. The effort that does not seem to pay off. The will and determination that cannot win a classy and brilliant move. Losing when you already have one foot on the victory. Sports are all cruel. A lost of focus or a spark of brilliance can win games, and you begin to wonder why, after the enormous amount of effort put in to win the game, you still lose it. The list goes on, and from the bottom of my heart i have never thought it is fair. But life seldom is.
I personally believe that failure moulds hardened bodies, and if taken with a positive attitude, failing is the first step. At this junction, you have two choices:
- Continue to take the next step.
- Let it become your last.
The coach in the anime ‘Slam Dunk’ said to his team that failure only comes when you acknowledge that it is the end of the road, and it never is. We can cry, for we are merely mortals, and the agony of defeat is sometimes too much to bear. But defeat is NOT failure. When we do fall, remember that feeling. The upset, the grief, the sorrow. Only when you remember the agony would you work superfluously hard to never feel the same feelings again. Only when you remember how it feels to be in the dumpsters would victory become sweet as honey. Only when we remember our sorrowful self would we spirit ourselves away for this pale complexion and work hard to become that much better, because we never want to feel the same way again.
Falling is inevitable, for we could not even walk when we were born. Defeat is a moment when you become convincingly or unfortunately beaten. But these things never last, for success comes to those who stand up one more time than they fall.
