The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
When I joined the school newspaper, I immediately fell in love with it. I spent most of the free time I had in the newsroom writing stories or designing pages. The work gave me the creative fulfillment I lacked in other classrooms. My diligence and perfectionist tendencies served me well when creating pages, and my natural curiosity of what was happening in the world around me drove the stories I produced.
It became a little bit of an obsession. Some high schoolers had sports, and I had journalism. The satisfaction of producing something entirely my own was adrenalizing. I decided I wanted to be the mobilizing power behind a team of people all ardent in delivering news to our community, so I made becoming Editor-in-Chief my goal.
I worked toward that goal all year, and eventually, the time came for the editorial board to decide who was going to step up for next year. I was sure I had Editor-in-Chief in the bag. I thought to myself, how could I not? The newspaper was my top priority in school, and I was one of the most devoted people on staff.
When the position was given to a girl who had half the experience and who, I felt, had half the dedication I did, I was devastated – heartbroken even. The one goal I had worked toward all year was ripped away from me. The loss stung.
I always felt terrible when pro athletes got injured, all of their hard work for naught. They practiced all season to be the best only to hurt themselves and get cut before the championship game. I imagined that this despondency was comparable to that. It would be agonizing to come back to the place I loved so dearly and worked so hard to have the one goal I wanted to achieve taken away from me. I had made sacrifices for the newspaper; I quit the swim team and barely passed pre-calculus. For what? To not get the recognition I thought I deserved?
I was remarkably discouraged, so I decided to take the summer to think about quitting. I weighed the pros and cons. Pros were I’d never have to go back and assuage the contention between myself the girl who stole the position from me. Cons were I’d lose out on what defined my high school experience – and what defined me.
I’d be lying if I said something about persevering because giving news to my high school community was more important than a personal vendetta because, truthfully, I came back to challenge myself. In the end, I had to prove to myself that I could work with someone I despised, and force myself to try to rediscover what made me fall in love with publication in the first place.
The first few weeks were miserable. Having to watch a girl I hated stand up in front of the class and introduce herself as the new Editor-in-Chief sparked an unbearable jealousy in me, and I found myself questioning why I came back.
I realized why I stayed at 9 p.m. on a Monday night. I was still at school, having yet to go home to do three-plus hours of homework and I was sitting next to the girl I had a sworn grudge against. While putting the finishing touches on our pages before sending to print, I realized that there was no place I’d rather find myself. The rush of trying to perfect something before a deadline and the camaraderie between the girl who I found to be just as dedicated and fastidious as I was unintentionally made me fall in love with this activity again.
Maybe I could get over myself after all.