Go fail and love your failures

I have been yearning to write about my new beginnings from last year, I want to share all my moments from that time without holding back. I have worked quietly and with patience. I have found real success day after day, knowing that amazing things has been happening. I am so proud of what I have done during the last year.

I was born in one of the most beautiful cities in Vietnam. Before senior high school, I led an easy and happy life with most of my spare time playing with friends. Then after an entrance exam, I entered Dinh Tien Hoang High School, one of the top 5 high schools in my town. On this day September 16 last year, a child who had just passed 17th birthday hesitantly set foot in foreign country – it was me. I came to Canada with great excitement and confidence with the cravings of learning a new language, but I was completely crushed by that confidence. I really struggled when I could not catch up with what someone was saying to me, or even articulate what I’m thinking into the right words for others to understand me.

The first day of school was terrible. I go to school every day with anxiety and fear instead of being eager like other students. Whenever I entered the classes, I felt an invisible thing clinging to me. I had low self-esteem because of my poor English. Things seemed to get worse as I started being grouped with others for schoolwork. People are uncommunicative when it comes to a new foreign person like me since there are language barriers that make it difficult and awkward for us to communicate. Difficult things seemed to get worse, and it came to the point where I was really upset about it all. I failed my first test of Physics. I tried improving my grades by practicing English. Every day I spent hours practicing English, doing the exercises given. It helped me improve my English significantly. And then after so much effort, I finally thought that I will pass Physics this time, but no, I have failed it. I was really shocked to get results. I struggled to find a solution, and then I made a rational decision which was to re-learn Physics.

It is still the same teacher from my previous semester, still the same Physics lessons, but the only difference is me. But in this semester, I was more confident in communication and teamwork with other people. I had the courage to raise my hand to ask the teacher instead of continuing to shy away because of my English. I felt a change in my thinking that helped me move forward. I gradually became open, energetic and happy to communicate, making new friends along the way. My grades gradually improved and it is no longer one of my greatest worries unlike before. And by the end of this course, I had passed Physics that I used to hate with a good score.

I have learned how to handle my fear of failure and I now know how to cope with it. I have been afraid of failure because I am terrified of being judged and ridiculed about my English. Most people buffer their own success because they think once they failed, they are done. Only when I had gone through my own hardships and came out whole again. After everything that I’ve been through is when I really saw what was waiting for me on the other side of it all — the insight and knowledge I had gained along the way, and most of all, a much deeper understanding of who I am and what I want to achieve in life. Thanks to the failure that helped me change my unhealthy mindset and become stronger. You see, we don’t really know who we are until we are broken and healed again. That’s why they say, “ when an egg breaks from the inside, life emerges”.