The gift of athleticism, the gift of intelligence, the gift of artistic ability, the gift of music sometimes cannot transcend the art of never giving up.

Sure, I might have some natural talent in certain fields. Everybody does. We all are talented people and we all have different destinies. Some of us try to take control of our destinies more than others do. Some of us have to work harder than others do. Some of us succeed more than others do. But the surest way to success is to master the art of never giving up.

And, as I have learned, mastering this art can be difficult.

Early on, I had quickly established what my innate abilities were. And none of these abilities were athletic abilities. As an ambitious child who has grown into an ambitious young adult, I struggled to accept that I wasn't able to run or throw or kick a soccer ball, especially in a town that placed a major emphasis on sports. If you were an athletic child, you were more highly regarded and treated as inherently superior. You had more friends and became "popular." Almost every person in my elementary school classes played football or soccer or basketball or softball.

I played none of the above.

At first, I accepted my severe lack of athleticism but it became difficult when in gym class I could not run a single lap around the soccer field or make a single basket in basketball. Since I realized my deficiency was "socially unacceptable," I became frustrated. No longer did I want to be the person lagging behind.

In fifth grade, I started taking karate classes and I credit those classes for allowing me to cultivate a mental toughness I never knew I had. I learned how to defend myself, how to deal with criticism, how to not fear other people. Never before had I felt so confident about my physical capabilities. But karate also piqued my interest in other sports.

I did not try another sport until a random day in sixth grade when my best friend (who is still my best friend today) was at recess and wanted me to help her study for a vocabulary quiz. When she opened her binder, I noticed she had a brochure for a field hockey camp and I never knew she played. I asked her about it and she handed me an extra one and told me to do the camp with her. I learned the game quickly and I enjoyed it, especially with the fearlessness I had fostered from my karate classes.

I played field hockey through middle school into high school and thoroughly enjoyed this sport and my new identity as a student-athlete. However, as the ambitious person I was, I, of course, wanted to become the best field hockey player I could possibly become. In the winter of my freshman year, I grew bored and knew I was not improving my physical fitness by idly sitting in my bedroom. I made the impulsive decision to run track in the spring to stay in shape.

Sometimes impulsive decisions are the best decisions.

Taking on spring track was one of those decisions. I fell in love with the sport, the team, and the concrete evidence that I was improving. Since I was still fairly new to sports in general, I was no superstar. I had difficulty running a mile and could hardly sprint more than a half of a lap around the track (and I was a slow sprinter too). But I was determined to improve. And I did over time. And I boosted my physical fitness as I had wanted. And I made friends. And I realized I was now a two-sport athlete after I was a zero-sport athlete for so many years.

I played field hockey my sophomore year but by track season sophomore year, it struck me that I might want to focus completely on running. After all, my efforts had granted me varsity experience as a sophomore when I thought I would never have varsity experience ever. I decided to run cross country my junior year and run all three seasons. I wanted to commit myself wholeheartedly to this sport.

Though I suddenly felt like a serious athlete, there was still a void, a vacancy, a gap of many years when I did not play sports that put me at a major disadvantage when I was suddenly running high mileage. Determined to become the best cross country runner during my first season as one, I surged my mileage too quickly. By the time I was racing, I felt physically unable to complete the course and my times started slow and got slower. I then had excruciating pain in my knee. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my tibia.

I was told I could not run for two months.

I remember that day vividly and the feeling that my aspirations had crumbled, my athletic dreams were scorched into ashes. I remember the hopelessness that crippled me more than my injured leg. I remember wanting to abandon sports forever and dismissing them as a long-enduring failure that began in fifth grade and ended junior year. But after I weaned myself from these thoughts, I was determined to cross train and run again.

My recovery became quicker than I expected. I was running after six weeks of cross training, rather than eight. But I struggled, seeing that I had missed pretty substantial training time. I, once again, pushed my body too hard. I then had two stress fractures in my opposite leg--one in my tibia and one in my fibula.

I was out of track for the remainder of my junior year.

I still cross-trained and envisioned hopes of a successful senior year, of the culmination of my athletic career where I will run faster times, where my hard work will play off, where I will receive medals. I started running at the end of my junior year after the season had ended, determined to sculpt this dream into a reality. But I had pain in my ankle which was my fourth stress fracture in a six month time period.

I spent the summer wearing a boot. My summer job entailed playing with kindergartners which was challenging when my leg was immobilized. My leg would sweat in the summer heat and I had to limp around to tour different colleges. But I decided I would take the fall season of cross country off to apply to college and train for winter and spring track. And my plan seemed reasonable; I would strengthen my legs without the strain of cross country and I had more time to focus on school and college applications.

But I realized I had a fifth stress fracture in my other ankle. The recovery period was shorter because it was a smaller bone. However, it felt longer. Much longer. Pretty much an eternity. I was out of winter track my senior year.

I had one more chance to succeed as a runner. And I took this chance.

I, once again, used this chance to train in a way that ended up destroying my legs for good. I spent many hours in the weight room during these cross-training periods and was lifting a weight that was much too heavy. I fractured my thigh bone near my hip and was centimeters away from needing hip surgery. This injury was my sixth stress fracture.

My track career was over and I spent much of the end of my senior year on crutches.

I still watched meets and tried to stay a part of the track team but I became more of a mourner than a spectator, lamenting the death of my career in a sport that I had once enjoyed. I was foolish, vehemently trying to pursue something that I knew would end in a failure. Many track athletes would post on social media about how their hard work had paid off. I would grieve that hard work for me meant more hours in the doctor's office and the hospital, getting tests and bone scans done as no one could fathom why my bones were so brittle. Everyone explicitly told me the truth I never wanted to hear: it's time for me to quit running.

As much as this statement seemed like a "truth," I dismissed it as a recommendation--a recommendation I was not going to follow. I held onto my hope firmly and surely that one day I will run competitively again.

The flames of hope still burn. I attend a large university where I have many opportunities to play non-varsity sports that mirror a high school athletic experience, so I decided to run for the club team. So far, I have met a great group of like-minded people who motivate me in the way my teammates did long ago in high school. I am an average runner at best but I still have opportunities to run in prestigious Division I college meets which I never envisioned even at the peak of my high school athletic career. This opportunity, for me, is success.

I have redefined victory not as winning races but as coming so far after facing adversity. My wins consist not of gold or silver plates but of evidence that I have made tremendous leaps from where I once was to where I am today. And many of us should deem these successes as victories. Because we are mastering the art of never giving up. And often, it is harder to master this art than it is to win at all.