A pleasant morning to everyone.

If we are like the most of people, we generally have a

bad and intense relationship with failure. We can see it as an ending, as proof that our plan did
not succeed or our ideas were not that good enough. The truth is, failure happens to everyone.
The only thing that separates people who succeed from those who do not is a proper
understanding of the power of failure. Success requires that we learn from mistakes, missteps
and also with misunderstanding along the way rather than falling into despair and giving up.
That’s the positive mindset you can derive when you fail. Failure can make you stronger, it just
depends on your mindset. You see every mountain as conquerable and that every challenge is
possible. You see yourself as an expert no matter how many times you have failed, because you
have an unshakeable belief that you will succeed.

Ever have that moment filled with immense disappointment when your goals could not
be accomplished and your dreams seem all but a figment of your imagination? For us students, it
is the feeling we get, when deep down, we knew our potential and how hard we had studied yet
we still feel that our result was not a true reflection of our hard work. It is doing gen chem and
math computations before a summative test and barely even passing, it is spending numerous
hours on a performance task and only attaining a low grade, it is doing your best on the sports
field and yet failing to make it into the team and for many athletic students it is that depressing
moment that, now when your results matter most, you have failed to deliver. You are consumed
with self-doubt as to whether you were justified in making certain career decisions. You wonder
whether you are clever enough, talented enough, physically and psychologically fit enough to
pursue your aspirations. Basically, you stop believing in yourself and it is at that exact moment
that your dreams become unattainable. Think about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg,
they were college dropouts and yet they are the few of the successful millionaires we have today.
I’m not saying that we should all drop out in college to be successful, but rather we should have
one thing in mind, and that is to do something that you are passionate about and believe in
yourself because nothing is impossible.

So if you are feeling exhausted and disheartened at the end of a tiring term, give
yourself the opportunity to make peace with the fact that you cannot change your shortcomings.
Thereafter, start deciding how you would like to redeem yourself. Don’t get trapped feeling sorry
for yourself but instead set yourself greater challenges. The only thing worse than failing, is not
learning from it. Try to establish what your strengths are and improve and cultivate those
strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses. In my opinion trying to work your weaknesses
to the level of your strength is a good thing because it will make you improve, while nurturing
your strengths and mastering them makes you exceptional. Do yourself a huge favor and stop
measuring your success and capabilities according to that of others because we’re all unique in
our own ways. The fact that she is a math genius does not make you stupid and the fact that he
plays well and runs fast does not mean you’re not athletic. We all have skills and capabilities in
us just in our own special way.

Einstein once said “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb
a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid”. So my fellow classmates, do not sell
yourself short by restricting your success to the achievements of others. You owe yourself more
than that. Do not allow your failures to dampen your positive attitude but instead use it as an
inspiration to try harder and most importantly eliminate the perception that failure is a bad thing,
It only tests your strength of character. So go out there and show failure what you are made of!