People have told me for almost my entire life now that I am amazing at everything I do. That I am the perfect individual. That I have the perfect life. And that I, as a human, learn from my mistakes.

I disagree with all of these statements.

I’ve been playing the piano for almost seven years now, and those seven years have been full of ups and downs. I still remember the utter joy I experienced when I first started playing, accompanied with the wonder of how exactly someone’s fingers could move faster than the speed of light. I’ve grown exponentially since that first day of piano class, hopefully for the better. But why does it seem that I constantly fail at what I’m the best at?

Practicing by myself, no problem. Playing at recitals, easy. Pounding out notes at a competition, however, is a different story altogether.

Since I was 10, I’ve attended a countless number of competitions that have been at different ends of the difficulty spectrum. Recently, I’ve started taking part in ones that require more effort from the player at hand, probably due to the fact that almost everyone competing has had numerous years of experience and can be considered piano gods.

Just today, I performed at the Georgia Music Teacher’s Association local audition, the first of three rounds to get to the state level audition. This round is by-far the easiest, as it is open to everyone in the area no matter their skill level.

Beethoven’s "Sonata Pathetique Movement Three" and Debussy’s "Deux Arabesques" were the pieces that I had been given the pleasure of playing. Both are so drastically different from one another, with the sonata’s racing notes all constantly trying to run at a breakneck speed and the arabesque painting a watercolor portrait full of rays of light bouncing off rippling water. As of today, I’ve been practicing these pieces for about six months, and I’ve had them ready to go for this specific competition for quite a while.

So why is it that I still underperformed?

Oh, that’s an understatement. My hands were shaking as I walked out of the audition room. My thoughts were racing with confusion, asking why I had messed up if I knew the pieces like the back of my hand, and suddenly, all I could think of was the disappointment on my parents’ and teacher’s faces. Sure enough, it was there. Just a few days after the competition, I received its results, and I had somehow managed to place second in my category. How this came to be remains a mystery to me, but I will never forget the sinking feeling in my stomach that dropped ever so low as I walked out of the competition room.

I’ve been involved in a repeating cycle of failures similar to this one, and it seems to be never-ending. So I’d like to point out to the people who say that I have the perfect life that this is not the case. I mess up constantly because I am human, and we all make mistakes, some bigger than others. And so I bring up the quote:

“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” — Morihei Ueshiba

But to what extent? I agree that failure is beneficial (and it allows us room to grow), but just how many failures does it take to achieve perfection? In my case, many.

At some point, all individuals need to come face-to-face with the fact that repeated failures are not going to get them anywhere, and they definitely do not pave the road to success. At some point, it is necessary to accept that you must work harder than ever to achieve your goals if you ever want to even come short of attaining them. Simply feeling bad about a failure for a short amount of time and then moving on with life is not the way to go about things. You must never forget that failure and constantly work towards correcting it. You might never completely fix that mistake, but it is guaranteed that you will fall short of doing so if you don't try in the first place.

In my situation, I’ve learned to come to terms with the fact that I’ve never actually learned from my mistakes. I acknowledge them for a while and then go about with my life, pushing them to the back of my mind where they stay forgiven and forgotten.

I will never do that again, and I hope that no one else does, either. Learn from your mistakes, don’t make too many of them and stay positive.