I thrive on failure

 I remember talking to one of my friends in the car shortly after one of our many lively hangouts. We we're laughing our heads off just 20 minutes ago with the rest of our friends and now it was time for me to drive him home. On the way home, we we're discussing transferring schools because neither of us we're at a school we wanted to be at. He was talking to me about the process of re-applying and the strategy of how to get in with the professors so that they write you a rec letter.


"I don't know if I want to re-apply." I said about five minutes away from dropping him off.


It was weird. I never said that out loud until that point but everything up until that point had me pointing in a direction of re-application. My dream school, my entire childhood, my ten year plan yet here I was saying I don't want to continue that.

he offered some words of reassurance. i remember him saying that i can't look at it as failing. but that's exactly when i said—and i remember this as if it was yesterday.


"at some level, i feel like i did fail."


an awkward pause followed. i don't blame him, i didn't even know what to say. i dropped him off shortly after and on the drive back blasted olivia rodrigo.


i never looked at myself as a failure. but that night, i felt like the biggest failure.


But then I actually went to college. I tried new things, I met great people. One of them was Kristi Odom, a Nikon ambassador who was doing a talk and bug walk in Seattle. Something I noticed her say—quite often actually—was "I fail all the time." I always looked to professional photographers—especially Nikon ambassadors—to be these photographers who knew everything. Of course, they were never perfect but in that moment I realized that the difference between a failure like me and a Nikon Ambassador like Kristi was NOT that she failed less than me. She probably failed more than me in her lifetime than me. 

In that moment, I look back to my high school experience, my life, my love life, and journey at Punahou. I've failed and bounced back so many times, I don't know how I forgot about it. 

If you read the other blogs, you will hopefully understand. 


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