Facing failure

Life is like a path. On that path, there are many unpredictable turning points, which make your life more dramatic and less boring. For me, an important turning point is when I failed in a literature competition. This failure changed my major from literature to English and changed my point of view about how to face to failure.
The competition was of course very hard because it was the large-scale competition; I was hopeful that I would gain the highest award. However, everything was not what I thought. I failed with a very low score and I was the only person in the literature team to fail. This made me extremely disappointed. I was sad and always blamed myself for failing. I cried a lot and thought that life was not fair to me. I had studied very hard and tried my best to do the test but the result was terrible.

“Why was I the only person that failed? Was I the least knowledgeable person?” I continued to ask myself these questions. However, blaming myself and being pessimistic did not make the situation better. Everything was even worse than before. I kept myself in an invisible snail shell; I did not want to talk to my friends or my parents. It seemed like I was becoming more distant with everyone. This made me think again. I had to change. I stopped my unreasonable crying and told myself that it was too stupid for me to just think negatively. If literature was not suitable for me, why did I have to make every effort toward it to receive nothing? I should change my major. I should open a brighter door when the literature door seemed not to accept me. I decided to choose English and focused more on that subject. And English was also the major I chose to study in university.
Everything seems to be better since then. I feel happier and more optimistic with my new choice. I found out that I am better at English than at literature, so I do my best to study English. Sometimes I think of my old failure and smile because of the senseless things I did in the past. However, thanks to that failure, I realize that everything is better when we change and think more optimistically.