Failure Happens

When I was fourteen I entered into my first skate competition. After months of preparation the contest finally came on Labor Day weekend. I was ecstatic; so much so that I went to the event three hours before it started just to warm up. Upon my arrival I saw that there was a new larger rail on the fun box. My friend who visited the park the night before said that they were going install a new rail but I could never imagine what I saw. The new rail was three times thicker and flatter than the original. Personally like steep rails skinny rails because it’s easier to bail out on when you mess up which was not the case for the rail in front of me. After not warming up I attempted a to do a backside board slide on the ever so slick rail and let the board slip out in front of me. At the time I was wearing holey ES theory 1.5 shoes with the thinnest sole you could possibly imagine; literally a centimeter thick. With my terrible shoes catching me, avoiding injury would be difficult. Once I had slipped out I used my left foot to catch myself from falling and the impact from the waist high rail bruised the Metatarsal of my big toe. I could barely walk. I had experienced this injury before so I knew what was going to happen. I was going to limp from the pain, I was going sit down and I was going to lose the contest. I had failed. After watching contestants destroy my local skate park, I took my run landed a much easier front side board slide and a measly two inch nose slide. I was very disappointed but at the end of the contest I got a free t-shirt, which was nice.

This is me at my first skate competition. This particular trick took all the time I had for run to land.

What I learned from this is that failure is often like a reflection oneself. It helps you determine where you are at, where you going, and how you want to get there. For instance the most clichéd quote about failure,"I have not failed; I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Thomas Edison. By failing at attempting to make a light bulb 10,000 times he was able to determine where he was at, find out where he was going, see a way to get there and create a light bulb. If he was able to learn from failure don’t you think we all can? I do. Though I failed from this experience I learned not go all out in practice, I learned that you must always be aware of your surroundings and that you must always plan out your ideas. Reflecting back on this experience I think in some way we can all learn and find a bright side in a failure evens if it’s a valuable life lesson and a free t-shirt.

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