A Series of Unfortunate Events

In life, we cannot deny the existence of difficult times that never fail to strike us at times that are truly unexpected. Hard times… well, they obviously are hard. And sure, for a while, you might feel so bad with the fiery blaze of giving up ascending, but at some point, you’ve got a choice to make. You can stay crestfallen and let your life become just a pale shadow of what it could be, or you can get your ass up and make things better than ever before.

The thing about failure is that we’re all dancing around, trying to avoid it, but to make real progress in our lives, we’ve got to deal with it when it happens.

Even if it seems bad right now, there is a silver lining to everything that seems to have gone wrong, and that’s exactly what I wanted to tell you. Let’s go over the mini series about my life that made me who am I today.

So the pilot episode tells about me, the lead role, participating in a contest about photojournalism. Admittedly, I didn’t even know what has gotten into my mind for joining that contest. Even so, I took it to challenge myself. The latter part was the beginning of inexplicable fun. I got into different schools and places to attend seminars about photography. The day of the regional competition came and it took place in Intramuros, Manila. Truth be told, I did my best to capture the best scene at that historical place, but of course, I wouldn’t dare to expect to win this kind of competition where hundreds of contestants aim for the best and proceed to the national level. Who am I, eh? On and on it went. With every angle, every click, every capture, photography had been my paramour. Talk about surprises, one would witness them at the last episode. I received a text message from my journalism adviser saying I won the 3rd place! Out of disbelief, I replied to my teacher, “Sir, isn’t it the English photojournalist who won and not me?,” and as he confirmed the good news, I immediately told my parents about it. Needless to say, they could have been the proudest in the world. As part of it, I was awarded in the division office of Muntinlupa and even in my own school. Graces and accompaniments from my friends, relatives, and teachers came and I couldn’t be a lot prouder of myself. And so that was a happy finale I guess. But wait, there is a special episode! If you think this is an ordinary story of struggle and triumph, you’re wrong. After about a month of good events came the unfortunate ones, which I didn’t expect to happen. On that evening of January, my mom asked to talk to me. I haven’t got an idea what was it about, but I felt the stir of apprehension inside me. As she starts the conversation, I’ve gotten a hint of what was it. I was right before then. I really meant that reply on my teacher. It wasn’t me but my other friend who joined that won the 3rd place. As I try to accept it to myself, tears began flowing in my eyes, thinking of the disappointments I will be giving to others. As the school promises to keep the issue to ourselves, it was not avoided. But right before the news came to my friends, they already know about it. I wasn’t afraid of the others’ judgment, I only cared about my friends. It was tough, and that basically summed up the first season.

Let’s go to the season two, first episode. This time around, I didn’t join a photojournalism contest anymore, but I became the camerawoman and editor of our class project. Since I am really interested in film making, I expected myself to do my best and to come up with a really good project. We’ve gone through different places to shoot of course. We went to Intramuros, Manila Bay, Binondo, and Quiapo. It was fun as first, but as the day of the submission started approaching, it became a nightmare. It was a lot of pressure for me. As we finished the shooting, we immediately edited the film. It was a series of days were I’ve only gotten 2-3 hours of sleep. And having a weak immunity, I became sick. But of course, that was not the time to rest, I must finish the project everyone was expecting me to do so. It was approaching midnight when I went to my batch mate’s house and submitted the flash drive containing our file. It was not the end of course. It was the final episode that I was afraid about. As we watched the final output of our movie, there are lots of errors when it comes to the transition and sound effects. Guess what, the blame’s on me, again. I once again disappointed the people around me. And that time, it was too much for me to bear. I couldn’t even bear to look at them in the eyes only to see pure disappointment in my field of vision.

But hey, I saved the best for the last episode. I was informed that there would be an entrance examination for senior high school at De La Salle University, my dream school. I badly wanted to pass and to get a scholarship, for this is the only way I can get in. I remember after the night where my mom talked to me was the day we went to DLSU to submit our requirements and the night after I submitted our class project was the day I took the entrance exam. I took this chance to prove myself again. I thought the finale episode came when I got the examination result saying “PASSED” on it. But again, I failed. I didn’t receive any scholarship letter as for my other classmates did. I sucked at all things. All I could do was to lock myself up in my room and cry all day. I guess that’s the only thing I am good at.

And that, folks, is my series of unfortunate events.

Even a year later, I still reminisce these memories. But when I do, I always realize that in every failure that I make lies an incredible lifelong wisdom that only I can unravel.

The real beauty of strength lies when we are able to look past our failures. It’s in the way when we determine to make it all right this time.

Despite all the failed attempts, I try again. And this time, with a lot more effort and a lot more will power. I learned from my mistakes and do not repeat the same mistakes again. I do it all different this time.

Now, I thank those disappointments and failures because had there not been those times, I would have never found out what it’s like to push my boundaries. Had there not been any disappointments, I would have never known what it’s like to rise back up again.

And had I not have struggled to love myself, I would have never known what it’s like to finally find the true strength and beauty in me.