I used to dislike having black hair growing up. Whenever I would look at my friends, I longed for the days I could have highlights.
But now, I adore the way my hair looks because so many people have told me how long and shiny it is.
By the time I entered the first grade, I had just gotten glasses, and if I didn’t feel like a nerd before getting them, I did then. Wearing glasses on my face almost felt like everyone was staring at me with a sign on my forehead that read, “I’m a nerd.”
But now, I like to think of myself as a nerdy owl. If I was an owl instead of a human, I would be the nerdy owl. I would be the owl who would stay inside of her treehouse reading books all day. It’s the same feeling I get when it’s a quiet Halloween night and all you can hear in the faint distance is the sound of rustling leaves and owls going “hoo, hoo.”
When I entered the fifth grade, I started to notice how my friend groups would shift so quickly; I’d be bouncing around from friend group to friend group.
But now, I consider myself to be the “floater” in life. I will happily adapt to my surroundings if it means that later in life, I will eventually understand the lesson.
In the 5th grade, I was so afraid of failing; I felt like I had to be like everyone else, and the second I realized I wasn’t was when it felt like it was too late.
So fail forward.
But what my 5th grade English teacher told me was that sometimes you fail in life, and that’s a good thing because you are “failing forward.”
And what’s better than failing forward, because sometimes, the only way to succeed is to fail first.
However, I don’t want you to take my word for it. I want you to take Dale Carnegie’s word for it. He was an American lecturer and writer, and here is what he had to say about success in life.
“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
So even though I may not be a kid anymore or talk to my teachers from my elementary days, sometimes, I still do catch myself running into them in the most random of places.
Sometimes when people act like reminders instead of a person, they are the reason that you want to continue “failing forward.”
So fail forward.
