What Happened the Day I Failed (Part 1)

PRECIOUS EJIOFOR

It all happened like a dream. It was a beautiful morning that fateful day; I remembered how I could feel. How I had no nights just in anticipation of my performance that day.

I was contesting for the Public Speaking category of the famous Port Harcourt Shift Competition 2019. I had managed to scale through the preliminary stages and so I found myself in the finals.

Just few days before the competition on 28th April, 2019, I got involved in an accident and was decorated with stitches all over my body. I remembered how the words of the nurse pierced my soul like a hypodermic syringe; when she said “you won’t be able to walk for sometime”. But as a fighter I have always been, I never let that news derail my quest for my speaking battle.

So the long awaited day came, and I prepared so well for it.
Everyone is so scared of failing, because it hurts a lot. I never knew one day, I will absorb the painful gunshots of Mr. Fail.  It’s so painful when you want something and you know how important it is to you, you worked hard, had sleepless nights; sometimes you barely eat because you want to make sure you don’t fail, and you end up failing and losing.

I can attest to the real feeling of losing; before I just say it but now I know it. Most especially when the ones you wish would have been there to cheer you up, hurriedly went on voyage to space and you were just left all alone; you to yourself, yourself to you. Now I can boldly tell you, failure truly has no friend or family. It is the shortest cut to solitude.

I learnt a very big lesson on that blessed day. I cried out my heart; I felt like it was the end of my life, I felt chattered, weak and broken and I had no shoulder to cry on. I had prepared very hard for my competition, with pains, injuries and stitches all over me.

Crying does not make you weak; if only you’re crying to do more better the next time, and not crying to give up.  I failed, I didn’t get the trophy.

I remain Precious Ejiofor
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