No one can avoid failure. No person has ever been 100% successful at everything. But people hate to talk about their failures, and try to avoid it at all cost.
Having participated in the interscholastic sport of wrestling, I have been given many opportunities to succeed or fail. I generally succeed most of the time. But I have failed, and failed at important times. What I do with these failures is more important than the wins. The way Ohio amateur wrestling works is there are two qualifying competitions to enter the State Tournament. You enter Sectionals, where top four placers go on compete in Districts, where again top four of that competition then move onto the State Tournament. I entered the District tournament on good note: the previous
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My third match was against a guy who I had beaten twice before. Thosewere tough matches, but I was confident. The whistle to start the match blows and the next six minutes were rough. In the last twenty seconds, my opponent takes me down, putting him up by two points. With seven seconds left I reverse the position, gaining two points and tying it. We then head to overtime. Then another overtime, one more overtime happens, and we end up in final overtime. If I escape, I win. If I don’t escape, he wins. We line up, I look at the referee, see him start to blow his whistle so I initiate my escape. “TWEET” the referee’s whistle goes. I initiate too early, giving my opponent one point the victory as well. I had lost a match I was certain I was going to win. A match others were certain I was going to win. The loss wasn’t even due to what my opponent did, instead, it was due to my actions alone. It hit me hard and the next few days were spent in depression, but then the realization that feeling sorry for myself helped in no way. So instead I got back on the mats the next day. I trained more and harder than I did before, and more time spent online looking for new techniques to add to my arsenal. Every week was spent lifting as well, in order to get stronger and