Perspectives on Failure

7th Grade. I got to school early that morning and ran to the gym. There on the door was a print out of the names that would be on the basketball team. For a few years I'd been going to basketball camps in the summer, my dad installed a hoop in the driveway, I played in the intramural league, but this was the first time I'd been tested in a tryout. I scanned the paper over and over again looking for my name as if by mistake they'd left it off. Nope. I tried out next year for the 8th grade team and made it. I worked hard during practice, but I spent all but 14 minutes of that season on the bench. I grew up a little when that happened- I realized that there were things I wasn't cut out for, that others were better at things than I was, and that I could fail at something I set out to do.