When asking most people what they want from life, the majority of answers you will hear are:
1. Health
2. Love
3. Family and friends
4. Success
5. Money
Many of these wants are satisfied in at least some people, but one answer that is not as common (although prevalent in human nature) is the desire of feeling important. We are beings who long and crave for appreciation, and we all have our own way of achieving it. The way you get your feeling of importance can determine your persona. We validate ourselves based on our own standards, for some it’s volunteering in a homeless shelter, building a career, being the top performer at work, as for others, it’s being the most notorious criminal in the country.
So what challenges are most people faced with while on their journey? Failure.
Failure is one of the biggest fears of humanity. No matter how big or small the failure is, the feeling of defeat and frustration can take over our lives. Some of us are so afraid of failure that we won’t even try in order to completely avoid the risk of failure, allowing our self-doubt manifest inside before failure even has the chance to become a reality. However, there is a way to overcome this. Instead of basking in failures, let’s bask in our growth. Everyone makes mistakes, but it’s in how we evolve from them that shows are true character. I always share my story with anyone willing to listen, it took me sleeping in a steel bunk bed in a jail cell and months of government programs to wake me up. Most people would be ashamed to share this and some would accept that that’s all they could ever be, but I share with pride. It was certainly no mistake, it was a transforming experience that led me back to school, I graduated with the highest honors at FIU and am now headed to law school; and in case you were wondering, I did not refrain from sharing my experience with the law admissions council, and to my surprise, played an important role in my acceptance. So go ahead, make mistakes, embrace failure, it’s ok to get discouraged, shake it off and remind yourself that what counts is what you do from today, forward.
- Marcela Moreno