Some years back, I and my friends were done with a phase of life as we had just completed our secondary school education.
After months of intense studying and preparation for the exams, the results were finally out we all rushed to check our results, most of us did well buy then some didn't sadly and one of those who didn't do well in the examination was a good friend of mine we also beared the same name (Timi). When i got to know this i walked straight up to him to hear from him and console him if possible...i could see through his face that he was really heart broken when he found out that he failed some of the core subjects he told me that he felt as if he was falling into an abyss of shame and disappointmentđ˘đ˘ I really felt for him that day because, Timi had always been a high achiever in school....he had always been one of the best students of our set then he also had a brain like that of a computer in the sense that Timi could literally memorize pages of information within few minutes...
I as a friend always went to him whenever I found any challenging question. Timi was afraid of making mistakes and afraid of letting people down. He was literally a guy that had never tested academic failure before, he was a perfectionist at heart and he would often spend hours studying and preparing for his exams hence he was totally unprepared for the emotional toll this result took on him. As I tried calming him down, he looked again at his result slip to be very sure the result was actually his...Timi immediately felt a sense of fear, rising within him such that he had never experienced before. He unknown to him, began to think aloud I could hardly hear him but I heard him asking himself questions such as "what will mom and dad say if they see this results?", "what will my brothers say when they find out i failed?", "now that i have failed what does the future hold for me?". He felt like he had let everyone down including himself.
Timi spent the next few days inside his room refusing to let anyone, especially his friends (i wasn't excluded) see him.
He didn't want to confront the fact that he actually failed. Timi during those few days, began to reflect on his life he then discovered that majority of the moments when he had been successful were the moments when he had taken risks and embraced failure He recalled the time he had auditioned for the school's play even when he knew quite alright that he had never acted before He was afraid that day that he would just make a fool of himself in front of everyone but he didn't let that fear stop him he went ahead and did it anyway and he had ended up getting the lead role.
Timi then realized that he needed to just implement the same attitude and courage towards his current situation. He put himself together to face the result of his actionâŚhe said with a courageous voice "I have to embrace my failure, learn from it, and use it as a stepping stone towards success". Well, with his newly found courage he soon began to socialize again and most importantly began to read vehemently...he met some teachers and tutors for help where necessary he made sure he focused more on the subjects he failed and made plans to improve. Though Timi's parents were a bit disappointed with his results, they tried their best to encourage him by letting him know that failure wasn't the end of the road... we his friends also played matured by not trying to make fun of him we constantly told him "Mafo'' meaning "don't fear" we always made him know he could do it.
As days turned into weeks and weeks Into months, Timi saw great improvement in his grades. He felt like he was still far from where he wanted to be but at least was making progress. At that point, Timi was no longer afraid of failure; instead he saw it as part of the learning process. Timi's failure turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it taught him so much he didn't know...it made him know the value if hard work, determination and resilience it also made him know being successful wasn't just about having good grades, but about learning from previous mistakes, and aiming to be a better version of himself.
