Few months ago, I went to baby, Anthony’s first birthday party. It was a normal day as usual. The door opened, an amiable and approachable woman walked in with a enormous birthday cake which had a red, narrow and well-carved “1” candle on the top with a warm flame. This innocent and adorable baby was giggling and staring straight at the gorgeous birthday cake. He stood up and tried to walk to his mother for a big hug. After several steps, he fell down and started to cry loudly because of the pain. His mother moved as fast as thunder, she dropped the gorgeous cake running to her treasured baby who was crying. Suddenly, she hesitated for a second. She stopped at where she was standing and watched her child to avoid repetition. Anthony was struggling and trying to stand up by himself. He used his little hands to push against the wall and the floor next to him. No matter how long he took to stand up, his mother waited. Eventually, he stood up by himself and he smiled broadly at his mother. In those 30 seconds, I saw the whole process of how a baby stands up. I thought about how in this world, countless people fail but never recover and give up their valuable lives. Why don’t they stand up like this adorable baby who was omly one year old?
I think in life we must have some failures or moments of falling down. Failures aren’t important, the most important and hardest lesson to learn is how to “stand up” and face the mistake that you have made. I believe that success comes from failure. I remember falling down hard once and I couldn’t find a way to “stand up”. I was very new to a violin competition in my native country. I was very nervous and I felt I was unprepared to go on to the stage even though I practiced for 3 months. I was lacking confidence. But I had to perform even though I didn’t want to. I went on stage and I had my worst performance ever in my life. I didn’t play violin for years after the ridiculous performance that I made in front of the public. My teacher was very angry, he shouted at me, “ Are you going to deprive yourself? Why were you practicing so much? What was that for?” Yeah, why did I practice so much? What was that for? Isn’t it for others acknowledgment of my skill and my efforts? Isn’t is for a fame in the school? Yes, those are what was I looking for. Those rewards are what people were looking for. But the difference is, I found the “wall” that I can push against and stand up. After thinking about it , I listed everything that I had to do to improve. And I practiced even harder and longer and more focus. After all of this effort, I achieved what I wanted, others acknowledgment and fame in the school. And this philosophy is still with me now. Whenever I encounter difficulties, I always think about how Anthony, an adorable baby, stood up and how I, too, recovered from having a bad performance.