Phoenix - the Bird of Failure

I was not accepted as a Student Ambassador.

I will not point my finger or act like a victim. I’m not a victim, I’m a young person in a development process and in the process of applying in the big world what I’ve learnt in my 3 years of volunteering.

I am going to tell you how it was in short and give you a little theory. Then, we talk about failure management.

The group interview meant 5 people who had 20 minutes to prepare a presentation about what to do in 15 predicaments and then present it in 5 minutes.

So a team can function, members should feel comfortable with one another and know each other, the team has to go through some stages and it can take days, weeks, sometimes even months or years for a team to become fully functional.

Looking back, I can analyse objectively the assessment process. Personally, I don’t consider this was the best method. I wouldn’t have considered this method better even if I were accepted, but I could have made a change from the inside. Now I am waiting to see how to give them feedback and I hope they’ll consider it. I am also waiting to receive their feedback because this will probably help me become better.

I believe that this is one of the first things to do when something doesn’t go as you wanted it. Take a good look at the situation, see what happened and how and, if you can, try to make a change so that it will be okay for others if it wasn’t meant to be for you.

I say one of the first things to do, not the first thing to do because before anything else you should breathe. I am writing this 4 hours after I finished the interview because it would have been extremely hard for me to be objective and coherent on the spot.

Yes, I wanted to cry. Yes, I cried on the bus on my way to uni. And that’s perfectly okay. But at the same time, I went to uni to look for someone to help me with some vocational guidance and an idea on where could I find a job.

Thing is not to let the world crumble after one failure. Not even after a series of failures. Yes, you feel that it crumbles. Yes, you feel discouraged. But no, you are not any less valuable. And no, it is not the end of the world.

You might think that you are only comforting yourself with it wasn’t meant to be or it was not my place. These are not empty words. It really was not meant to be and it really was not my place. I also found out why during the vocational guidance session.

You know, there’s a saying, kind of a motto for DEIS.

Keep on going

Yes, I still want to cry and I am tearing on the keyboard. But it’s fine. I let everything come out, expect my dreams/goals. That’s the legendary ash of the Phoenix.

I keep on going my way, we’ll see where I get. Not everything has to work out fine. But there is another saying, I also know it from DEIS, from Context Urban show to be more specific.

Any opportunity you have can be a learning opportunity.

P.S. In the pic I used for this article is the guitar pick that I consider the youth worker. And it still represents me cause my competencies didn’t disappear.

(I made a pun in Romanian but I can’t translate it).