Failure? Success.

“Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong” –Edward Tenner

In whatever you do, there are times where you just want to give up in the first few minutes. You just want to collapse onto the floor and not do anything and stay still. Sometimes, these moments can bring you success in what you do by driving you to do something.

I walked into the quiet, still room with sixty other middle school friends whom stared at me intensely. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I tried to sneak into my seat and put my clarinet on my lap so it wouldn’t make any noise. Instead, I tripped on the carpet floor, almost dropped my clarinet, and most of all, fell with a huge boom. Everybody stared at me with bunny eyes as if I had committed a felony. I thought, ‘Oh boy, this is going to be a long, hard day’ and sat on the seat, opening my music to finger along. Soon enough, the judges came in the room, sitting in the very back of the classroom, backs towards us with a black curtain separating us. For hours, the audition continued. Suddenly, the judge said in a harsh tone, “Letter I and J were not able to come. Letter K, please come forward and play the audition. For about ten seconds, I was not away of what was happening. Then, the person next to me gave me a glare, and I finally figured it out. It was my turn. I took a deep breath, walked over and played my music the way I practiced it all along, successfully. The day that I thought was going to turn out horribly, turned into a wonderful day of giving me the honor of Houston Region first chair.