To My Little Sister

To My Little Sister

Why am I so affected?

It is with great excitement that I waited the results of the exams. After the examinations, I regularly click the internet site for the results. When I learned that the results would finally be revealed on the 21, I waited until the early hour just in case it will be posted.

I left early on the 21 and did not able to check. It was late afternoon that I able to come home. It was also then that I received the text that you did not make it. I turned on my computer to see the results. It was only then that I believe that you did not pass.

I am greatly affected.

My experience when I was in my last two years of my studies come to mind. I got the results of the subjects. In one subject I got a bloody grade. Not only did I fail, I failed miserably. Never in my mind did I think that I will receive a grade of 63. Is that still a grade?

Yes, I must accept I did not do well in that class. In fact I was so preoccupied with so many things that I did not bother myself to give an myself to really study, only little time and effort. But just the same, I expected my professor to be charitable enough to give me a passing grade. But I guess the professor was not. (ha ha ha) Our rector asked me when I showed it: “Ano namang padali mong yan?” I just smiled.

Well, it was not easy for me to accept. In my entire history of studies it was my first time to fail. But you know what? I continued studying… And I graduated with flying colors! (modesty aside )

Come to think of this…if people will stop when they fail nobody will succeed! The young basketball player Michael Jordan was denied by a varsity team. He tried again and accepted. He went on to become one of the great basketball players ever.

Albert Einstein. He has a speech problem when he was young. He studied and became one of the geniuses ever lived.

Even the great Manny Pacquiao suffered knockouts in his early career but got back to become one of the most exciting boxers ever.

Think also about this…If you stop trying when you fall many times when you were a child, you never will learn how to walk. If you stop trying to talk when you were grumbling as a child, you will never know how to speak. If you stop writing when you were a child and could not hold correctly your pencil, you will never know how to write.

Failures make us learn things that we will never forget. They challenge us to do better. They show us the way towards overcoming failures the next time they come. They help us to get up where we fall. They push us to realize our potentials. When we continue, we become stronger and better. Failures do not diminish how great a person you are.

Remember this: “It is not what we do that defines us, what defines us is how we rise after we fall…” (Maid in Manhattan)

*By the way I owe you a cone of sorbetes…