Failure. Or rather, failURe, pronounced as “fail U R” – something Master Yoda would, but I doubt ever, say.

I think most people would associate the term “failure” with a grade. It could have been the first time they received a score below 90 if they were a straight-As student or a loss at a sports match. Albeit I have experienced all of those things (I mean – come on- you can’t expect to be pre-med and not receive a 30 at sometime during your academic career or not lose a tennis match), my mother was brilliant and made me remember the Rudyard Kipling poem If by the time I was seven. It has this extraordinary line in it that goes,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same.

I never understood what those lines really meant until, of course, I started receiving grades I was not used to at all. Instead of beating myself up about it, my mother taught me to learn from the mistakes I made and made me redo the incorrect questions even if the teacher never assigned them.

So, my worst experience with failure was n0t with grades but rather with an internal understanding of myself. My second year of college, I applied for a program, which will be unnamed, early on in the fall semester that, if accepted, would allow straight admission to a medical school whilst pursuing a humanities degree. Medieval studies and medicine?! I know. Thus, I put my whole heart in it. I had maybe seven drafts of my essay that I asked professor after professor to look over. Because I’m an analytical thinker, I knew the percentages. The percent of being asked for an interview was less than 8%. The percent from being accepted after the interview was 25%. I just thought to myself, “Okay, if you can get an interview – you can do this. Just get a damn interview.” I submitted all of my documents online and in person – yes, I’m that kind of person – and then played the waiting game, which I’ve played hundreds of times before. This time, however, the hurricane named after the most ridiculous female “role-model” from Grease came and destroyed my home. When I got the confirmation email that I was accepted for an interview, I took it as a divine sign that perhaps  something good always happens – that this was meant to happen. But, of course, I couldn’t leave it to fate. I prepped and was ready for the interview a month later that I thought I aced. The interviewers seemed interested in my idea and who I was. What more could I ask? Well, to get in I suppose. Exactly on December 23, two days from Christmas, we got the emails stating our status. I was one of the 75%. I think I read that email a hundred times. It stated that, even though I was talented and whatnot, they just didn’t have space – the normal rejection talk universities give you so as not to hurt you “too much.” I was devastated. I thought it was this sign. I wasn’t even in my own home nor did I even have a door to hide behind. I felt as if I failed myself. What did I do? I worked so hard, went through taking three sciences with labs during one semester to make myself eligible for the program, slaved to get the perfect GPA, went through a disaster for what? A rejection? It took about two weeks and a river of tears to convince myself that I was a smart cookie – and a tough one too. I bounced back and decided to put even more unattainable goals and programs with even lower percentages in front of me. And, you know what? I got some of them. I should have just listened to Kipling from the beginning and treated my successes and failures just the same. It’s okay to fail just as it’s okay to win.

It’s not the end of the world but rather the beginning of an even better one.