“What do you want to be when you grow up?” the teacher asks. Kids scream out things like “astronaut, president, mermaid, doctor…” When we are young we have nothing to gage our wildest hopes and dreams we think anything is obtainable, it is amazing. We are not afraid to try new things, because we have no concept of failure. But then that first failure comes, the first time we realize we might not be everything we envisioned. That our eight-year-old selves might have had it wrong, that maybe being president isn’t a real goal, and it’s heartbreaking.

It’s in that first moment we learn what it means to not be the best. What it means to realize and understand someone is better than you, and frankly a lot of people are. For me this was in the third grade and I doing basic math when this happened. The boy sitting next to me laughed as I struggled to do the basic sheet. It was at the moment I realized I was not like everyone else around me. I could not do the problems in under twenty seconds, honestly I might not have been able to do them in under a minute. I failed, I was so discouraged, even embarrassed that I couldn’t do this simple task.

I went home and my parents sat me down and taught me why it was okay to not be the best, it was okay to fail. I grew up in a house where mistakes were allowed, where it was okay to not be perfect all the time. A house that allowed me to grow, and learn, and shaped me into the person I am today. You see after that day I learned what hard work was, I learned that I could be like the other kids in the class, I would just have to work twice as hard.

We set sky high expectations and when we don’t meet them we think of it as a lost cause. That way of thinking is dangerous and narrow minded, everyone yes everyone is going to fail at something. But it’s what you do after you fail that makes you the person that you are. It’s the ability to rise up again, and realize that when you get knocked down, it’s a bump not a life changer. So maybe you won’t be president, then again maybe you will, but you’re the only person who can make that choice.

Our failures, our trials and errors well they are the very things that shape us into the people we are. They make us work, they make us angry, but they also make us incredibly driven to do better the next time. I truly believe we all need to fail to realize our true potential. So the next time you bomb a test you really studied for, or can’t seem to get anything right you must remember this. Nothing in life is permanent, those failures they will come and go, and we will all move on to the next big thing. It is true you are not measured by your failures, but by what you do after you have failed. In case anyone hasn’t told you today, I believe in you, in your successes, in your failures, but most importantly in you.