Good morning everybody. I’d like to share about the documentary Spell Bound, which changed my way to face failure.
Spell Bound is about a US national student competition called Spelling Bee. Competitors need to spell lots of difficult and strange words like “wheedle” or “lithobiomorpha” until they make one spelling mistake and then—out or until they become the champion out of 249 competitors. The documentary traced eight competitors, from their training, competing to after the Spelling Bee. All of them want to win, but as you know, this is a competition to lose instead of to win! So when watching the film, I discovered that there’re different attitudes to face failure, and I changed my way of thinking about it.
Emily was one of the eight competitors. She loved competing with others. During the first interview, when she was preparing for Spelling Bee, she said frankly, “I don’t like spelling, but I like to beat people who are better than me, and show them ‘I can do that too’.” She dreamt about her stunning success, when she was given a weird and complicated word which no one actually knew, and there she spelt it out correctly. You can imagine the last thing she wanted was success. Well, she didn’t lose until the last round, when only she and other three competitors were left. Although she lost when she came so near to her goal, she didn’t go mad as I predicted. “I feel that this part of my life is over. And I don’t want to do it again!” she laughed, and she was confident as ever.
I reflected on my own way of facing failure. I will think about it over and over, and I can’t let my failure become the past. I cannot forget it! It is a lesson to remind me to make some kind of improvement! Then did I really improve? I don’t know. But certainly I will have a bad mood and a great burden in my mind. Can I try to look at failure like Emily did? This way, perhaps I will start to enjoy competitions too.
Angela was another competitor in the documentary. Compared to Emily, she was a more normal girl. She made word cards and puzzle crosses by herself to help memorize the words, and she practised with her friends and English teacher. Before the competition, she worried about the result and asked her teacher, “What if I lose?” and her teacher answered her, “Then, you lose!” I was like Angela, because I believed failure will disappoint people, and that causes worrying. But Angela’s teacher’s words reminded both of us: failure is okay. There is no need to be afraid of it because we can accept it as a fact. Back to Angela, she lost in Round 3. She didn’t look sad or sulky. She looked relieved, in fact she joked that she feels happy as there’s no need to practise for Spelling Bee anymore. Of course, failure still made her a bit down. But Angela accepted it, and tried to look at it in another perspective. That’s why she can be calm.
Harry faced his failure in another way. He was a strange boy from the beginning, always telling jokes or playing the guitar or talking to the interviewers using robot voice, so I think it would be shocking to him to lose in Round 4. Failure is not fun but painful reality. But I was wrong. Harry was always cheerful, and when the interviewers asked him, he said he didn’t care and “that guy pronounced it wrong anyway.” He meant the pronouncer of the Spelling Bee. My God, you blame the authority? Your failure was your responsibility! It was totally unacceptable to me, I nearly screamed at the screen when I watched Harry saying that. But then, when I thought about it, I realized that it is a new way to face failure. Why not? “It is all my fault,” I always think so when I failed to do something. “I was wrong. I should have done better…” Again and again, I labeled myself as a loser. If I try not to blame myself so much, and although it’s a bit tricky, try to distribute some of the responsibilities to other people, then maybe I can keep my spirits up.
Among the eight competitors interviewed in the documentary, one of them became the national champion. She was Nupur, an Indian girl. She was a bit of perfectionism, that is, she wanted to do everything perfectly. She studied excellently, learnt music instrument, her every action was full of confidence. And she defeated 248 competitors in Spelling Bee to receive her trophy. She was the winner, and why should I mention a winner when I was sharing about failure? The reason is Nupur was a loser in the Spelling Bee a year before her success. What was her attitude towards this failure? “I’m coming back,” she said. To her, failure equals determination. In the whole year, she studied heavy old dictionaries, practised with the help of computer and her parents, and was determined to win. In her second Spelling Bee, she was very confident and perfectly calm. So finally, she won. This is another way to face failure, and I admire it very much, but it is really tough.
In conclusion, there are many many ways to face failure. You can forget it, swallow it, if you can’t you can blame someone else, or you can work harder to gain success in the future. The main point is to adjust your attitude. In the past, I always thought failure means frustration and something forever unforgivable, like an ugly scar. But now I feel easier when I fail, because there are happier ways to look at failure, why should I make such a fuss about it?
I hope you enjoyed my sharing and that it can give you some inspirations into how to face failure. Thank you.