Hi friends,
When I was fifteen years old, my maths teacher asked to see me in the staff room to talk about my end-of-year results. I arrived to find him frustrated and angry.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he said. “A smart girl like you.”
I was surprised. I thought I’d done well—I always did well—but maybe I’d misjudged it, gotten cocky, underestimated the difficulty of the exam.
My teacher put my paper in front of me.
99/100
He pointed to the one question I’d gotten wrong. “A smart girl like you,” he repeated, “making such a silly mistake.”
I mumbled some sort of apology.
He handed me a pen. “Fix it,” he said. “But do it quickly.”
I sort of numbly took the paper from him and walked over to a table, unsure of what to do. I stood there, for who knows how long, aware that behind me my teacher was getting restless.
Eventually, I turned back around. I thrust the paper in his hands as confusion registered on his face.
“I can’t, sir,” I said. “I didn’t earn it.”
He looked at me with disgust, then dismissed me.
I scored the highest marks that year, not only in my class but the entire school, and I still walked out of that room in shame. And it is with that shame that I relayed the story to my father, expecting a somewhat similar response.
His reaction surprised me. My father’s face broke out into the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and he had never been more proud.
There are things more important than exam results, he said. Today, you showed everyone who you are, but more than that, you showed yourself who you are.
I have come to understand this year that the sale isn’t everything.
When the chips are down, you show the world—but more importantly, yourself—who you are.
Are you angry and bitter?
Fearful?
Full of negative self talk? Full of shame? Insistent that you’re a complete failure?
I have always liked the person I become when I’m succeeding—bold, brave, funny, generous, a real treat to be around.
But I’m a real bitch to myself when I’m failing.
We’re told that failure teaches us things, and what that usually means is that setbacks show you what not to do. I think they can also show you who not to be.
When you’re failing, you truly learn who you are.
If you don’t like that person you become, you get the opportunity to change it. If you do, you get to solidify it, become more of it.
I didn’t always have a sense of worthiness around my writing and my career. I have, unwittingly, conditioned myself into being a person who scores 99 out of 100 and instead of celebrating the 99 successes, beats herself up for the one thing she hasn’t done.
I’m learning not to do that anymore.
I’m learning not to be that anymore.
I want to be bold, brave, funny, generous, and a real treat to be around when I’m succeeding.
AND when I’m failing.
When I look back at my fifteen-year-old self I am, just like my dad, proud of the person I was, even if I didn’t achieve the perfect score I so desperately wanted in the moment.
And when I look back, twenty years from now, at this moment that I stand in today, I hope I can feel the exact same way.
And you?
Cheers,
Natasha