I have always been a strong believer that when one door closes, another one will open. Failure to some may be a step backwards or a cease in advancement, but to me, it only creates more opportunities. Failure either shows you what you need to improve on or it provides a reason to start something new. But to many failures is not easy, it will be hard to get over, but in the end, it will all be worth it.

Failure can feel like you let everyone down, but in the long run, it benefits you greatly. When we accept failure as the progress we get closer and closer to our goal as we learn more and more how to succeed. For example, Lebron James lost the NBA Finals in 2010, but he did not give up, it just gave him a reason to work harder. He ended up winning back to back titles.

Similarly, I experienced failure in high school athletics. Unlike Lebron James, I didn’t have the millions of money he was making to cope with the lack of success. It took place in April of my freshman year. Blake Rose, a young, fragile, 14-year-old boy was ready for the baseball tryouts. The day was sunny, a perfect day for me to win the hearts of the coaches. The tryouts took about four days and by the end of it, I believed it was almost guaranteed that there would be a spot for me on the coach’s roster. He brought everyone together and started to list the names of everybody who made the team. “Joey, Chris...”. I stood there waiting impatiently, saying to myself “Please don’t tell me I didn’t make the team”. “...Adam, and finally Dave.” Optimism quickly turned to anger, I wanted to argue with the coach and speak my mind but I couldn’t because I was speechless. A mix of anger and sorrow filled my mind. My friends walked to me and said “Blake, you should have made the team, I don’t know what the coach was thinking about”, but that didn’t help at all because their words were not putting me on the team.

When I went home and told my parents the overwhelming news, I not only felt embarrassed but I believed that I let them down. My mom told me that even though I didn’t make it, I worked my hardest and gave it my all. She also let me know that there were plenty of spots open on the tennis team, coached by my teacher, Mike Schmeltz. When I told him that I wanted to play tennis, he was ecstatic, “we can always use athletic players like you.” Playing tennis was probably the best decision in my athletic career. Even though many people thought it may be just a hobby and not a sport, it was the perfect activity to get my mind off of baseball. I’ve always played tennis with my grandpa, and my previous experience in baseball helped me get a headstart on my forehand swing. I did not start my freshman year but I was able to learn information and key criteria for success in Tennis from Keshav Reddi, who recently broke the record for the most wins in our high school’s Tennis program. After intensive practice and constant work in the offseason, I was able to be a part of the varsity team my sophomore/junior year.

The struggle of not being on the team not only taught me about adversity but it helped me grow as a man. It has shown me that in life, there will be obstacles in the road. This has shown to me that there are ways to get over the obstacles, and taught me to never give up because there will always be that light at the end of the tunnel.“The triumph can't be had without the struggle” -Wilma Rudolph. This shows that success and failure go hand in hand with each other. Everything happens for a reason, you may fall down but the true test is how you get back up.