Accepting Failure: After Giving It My All

This post discusses about the recent emotional deterioration that I faced. If you are currently undergoing a challenge, I sincerely wish you to cheer up!!

The Disqualification

One may wonder: how big of a challenge can a high school student face? Well, I believe regardless of age, countless people encounter emotional challenges. For instance, failing an exam, receiving rejections, and breaking-up with the significant other may cause distress. As a student who wishes to major in pure mathematics, disqualifying from the second stage of team selecting process for the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) hit me hard.

Most students in South Korea prepare from the age of 7 to become a representative for the IMO. While I wasn’t as intensely prepared compared to the other students, I can proudly say that I gave it my all for past 11 months. I genuinely spent at least 5 hours to at most 10 hours on solving and studying Olympiad style problems without missing a single day. After passing the first stage of the selecting process, I studied harder for the second stage. Because I knew that I wasn’t as good as the past representatives, my goal for the year 2025 was to qualify to participate in APMO (Asian Pacific Mathematical Olympiad) by passing the second stage exam of KMO (Korean Mathematical Olympiad). Unfortunately, I was not able to make it.

Overcoming the Challenge

Failing from KMO Stage II has more meaning than just failing for me. I was genuinely worried about my future applications for math programs and motivation to study further for Olympiad mathematics. Moreover, the biggest challenge was that I was not able to fulfill the expectation of other people. Every time people ask for the result, I need to say that I could not make it. What’s more painful than failing the exam is the fact that I need to say unfavorable result out loud numerous times for next few days even if I am aware that I couldn’t make it.

The Positive Mindset

As a result, I decided to change my mindset. If anyone asks me about the result, I proudly say that I couldn’t make it. Because I have my final chance next year, I will take the failure from this year as my main motivation. In regard to future applications for math programs, I believe not all participants in summer programs are IMO gold medalist. I began to understand silence radiance with the fact that my hard works and myself are just a tiny bit away from getting a spark for huge fire. Although I cannot make the fire right away, I believe that smoke, or effort, is an essential indicator that the fire is actually starting.

The positive mindset to turn failure into a chance and shame into a motivation allowed me to prepare myself for bigger challenges. Moreover, while walking down the street, I realized that staying in distress does not change the result. It is only the positive mindset that changes the failure into chance.

It’s really not the end of the world. I believe nothing is impossible if we have the positive mindset to create the future!!