I think that growing up, I always felt like failure was looked down upon. Whether this was failing a math test in middle school or falling of the balance beam at a gymnastics meet, when you failed it showed lack of ability or weakness. It was always just assumed by me that failure was bad in all contexts and I was supposed to do everything I could in order to not fail. Now this sounds silly, but I think it holds a lot of truth. Our society encourages success, glamorizing those who have achieved it. But when we think back to it, those people wouldn't be there without failure as well. No one has ever gone through life without failing, and I mean really failing at something.

Today, as a 19-year-old student, I have made more mistakes than I could probably count on my fingers (and my toes) twice over. In these recent years especially, I have realized how utterly important it is to fail. So many things I know how to do or have learned through the years have been taught to me through a period of immense failure. I fail every day. Physics homework? Yeah, I really fail at physics homework. Boys? Oh yeah, trip-and-fall-on-my-face kind of failure.

Riding a bike took countless falls before I could zip down the street of my childhood neighborhood, learning calculus took near infinity mistakes before I learned how to do the math involved (well kind of), and learning who I was took a lot of time for me to learn who I was not. I could keep going, and going, but the point is failure is not a bad thing, in fact, I would not be who I am without it.

I make mistakes every day. But, the important part is that I learn from mistakes every day. Instead of harping on myself for making mistakes, I would like to think that at least most of the time I can take something out of my failure. This is not just something I do, I think this is a societal norm that everyone seems to be doing because frankly, humans make mistakes naturally. Our society puts a lot of pressure on us to perform, but what is so wrong with failing under pressure?

I believe that realizing that it is okay to fail has allowed me to be more bold, to get out there and try things that I'm pretty sure I'm no good at, and therefore, failed more times than I thought. To me, failure is a sign of success, it's the first battle to win and the most important aspect of learning. Truthfully, I believe we all should allow ourselves to fail, and embrace this failure for exactly what it is because we cannot forget that it is an option.