Failure is Never Final...(unless you choose it to be).
In the middle of fall 2010, I was an undergrad at UGA majoring in Dietetics. I was taking Organic Chemistry, one of the hardest classes offered on campus; a true “weed out class.” The lecture hall was practically an auditorium; I think there were probably 300 of us in there, sitting in terraced rows, and the professor had to wear a mic or else you wouldn’t be able to hear him. It is a very impersonal way to learn, but if you can withstand the ruthless weeding, then I suppose you can thrive in any learning environment.
Well, I had my associates in English from the community college. Then I transferred to UGA, and I chose to drop English and go for Dietetics for two reasons. The first was because I got asked this ALL THE TIME: “What can you do with an English major? You planning to teach?” The second was because I felt like I needed a cookie cutter job when I graduated from college. Because I didn’t have the fire to tell people that 1. You can do anything you want with an English degree. And 2. I want to write books. So I literally jumped from Humanities to Science all because I was too afraid to major in the field that I truly, ardently loved.
So I was sitting in my O-Chem arena…er, classroom…waiting for lecture to begin. And I happened to glance down and notice there was an abandoned issue of The Red and the Black (school newspaper) by my feet. I gathered it together and began to read about none other than Jackson Pearce, YA author and UGA alumni. It was an interview where she talked about her upcoming book and why she loves to write YA. And it was in that moment that I sat back and literally asked myself, “What am I doing here? Why am I sitting in an O-Chem class when I want to be writing?”
Well, class began so I had to put the paper aside. I put my thoughts and dreams and desires aside because heck, this is Organic Chemistry and I was trying to keep myself from drowning in it.
And you know what? I would have kept going. I would have grit my teeth through all the science classes I still needed to take. I would have pushed on and on and on to reach my diploma in Dietetics, and then I would have found a job at a school or nursing home calculating and advising people how to eat mindfully and healthfully. Except one thing stopped me.
I got a D in O-Chem.
I GOT A D IN O-CHEM!
I had literally devoted four months of my life to breathing organic structures. I had no social life. It was chemistry all day long, every weekend. I had given it everything that I had, and I failed at it.
It was my first D. And I was a strict A-B student. Like, I didn’t even have a C. So this D absolutely devastated me. It was right at Christmas and I realized that I had failed and I was going to have to take O-Chem AGAIN. And I literally sobbed and thought, “I cannot do this.”
I now faced a dilemma. Did I a) take the horrendous class again b) give up and call myself a failure and tell myself I wasn’t smart enough…gosh Becca, you should have known you would be weeded out. Those were my two options. I could not really see anything else for me at that moment. I decided to embrace failure and not take the class again. So essentially, I gave up the ghost and died. It sounds ridiculous, but I was pretty broken by the failure.
The failure was final to me.
Until my mom literally peeled me up off the floor and gave me a good shake. “Change your major. Go back to English.”
“No, no I can’t do that. I’m a failure, Mom.”
“Go back to English.”
Because she said that, because she planted the seed in my mind, I thought about it. Then I did exactly what she said to do. Over Christmas break, I changed my major. I returned to English. I registered for literature classes that made my heart feel alive again. When spring semester began, I walked into Park Hall, which smelled like an old building and books. And there, right on the wall, was a drawing of a hairy Hobbit foot with the slogan, “FRODO LIVES.” And that was when I realized that yes, I had come home.
If I hadn’t failed O-Chem, I would have never returned to English. If I hadn’t returned to English, I wouldn’t have gotten the job I landed post graduation. If I hadn’t landed that job, I would not have begun writing again. I honestly believe that I would have never written IMPASSIONED. I would not be looking forward to being published by HarperCollins next fall, an event that has utterly changed my life.
My failure wasn’t by any means final (as I thought back then). No, my failure merely redirected me and sent me on another path, one that led me to where I stand now. It changed me for the best, and so now I look at that D in O-Chem and I think, “Thank you Lord.”
Failures hurt. But don’t ever let them be final. Let them redirect you.
