Success is counted sweetest by Katherine Straub

Prompt

26straubk — 2025-02-10 03:06:06 UTC

Dickinson discusses in this poem how success is valued most by those who fail. Have you ever had a goal or project in which you had to persevere through failure in order to succeed? How did that journey affect how you felt about your success?

Grace Kappen

26kappeng — 2025-03-07 17:12:06 UTC

Yeah, I've experienced that. I was trying to program a game in python and- THE NUMBER OF BUGS AND GLITCHES. It worked out alright though :D It was so satisfying finally getting it to work, so much so that I literally want to go into Programming as a career.

Emma Whare

2025-03-07 17:12:28 UTC

I think that when it comes to golfing, the thing that motivates me the most is not success but failure. Whenever I have a good golf round, I don't feel the need to ask others for advice or go practice on the range afterwards. However, whenever I have a bad round I feel the need to keep improving and work harder and it actively pushes me towards my goals.

Maeson Eser

2025-03-07 17:13:06 UTC

I experience the feeling of pushing through failure a lot through computer programming. Programming is basically all about failing until you succeed. You spend a lot of time reading through error messages and then adjusting your program accordingly, just for the fix you made to cause another error when you run your program again. However, the feeling of finally making your program function properly is made even better due to the amount of times it failed.

Devon Decker

26deckerd — 2025-03-07 17:14:23 UTC

Although it is a minor example, I was not happy with the grade I earned on my first AP Stats test. This was very disappointing given the fact that I worked very hard to review and practice and I still feel that I could have done better. In order to overcome this setback, I made sure to be extremely focused during the next unit. A great level of focus allowed me to retain the material and then apply it on test day. After receiving a satisfying grade, I felt that I had reached a certain level of success.

Ruqayah Alswaid

26alsuwayyidr — 2025-03-07 17:14:47 UTC

Setting unrealistic goals for myself can often come with failure and the feeling of defeat. Wanting to do the best in academics does not always go to plan, and when I do not score as well as I wish I did on a test or assignment, I feel like my accomplishments are set back. However, all of these journeys affect my perception of success. If I do not understand a material, I will have to try harder to teach myself and practice until it becomes common sense. This encourages me to care more about my grades and realize that it will never be perfect from the first try, because success takes hard work.

Kyleigh Snyder

27snyderk — 2025-03-07 17:15:06 UTC

I definitely agree that we value success more once we have failed, rather than having it spoon fed to us. Everyone faces hardships in life, and the feeling of euphoria that comes after successfully overcoming that and achieving something greater is unremarkable. I always feel more proud of myself when I think of how hard it was for me to accomplish. Whenever I do well on a math test, I feel much more proud of myself than I do when I do well on a history test, just because math is something I struggle with constantly. Being in musical theater also helps me experience healthy failure because in the world of music, you get more no's than you do yes'. I am super proud of where I am today and the success I have made vocally because of the challenges I have faced.

Katie Straub

26straubk — 2025-03-07 17:15:29 UTC

I appreciated qualifying for the Cross Country District and State Championships this year so much more because of my inability last year. My sophomore season, I fell at the finish line of the Carlisle Invitational and gave myself a concussion. This concussion lasted two months and required me to do vestibular therapy. Due to this long recovery, I missed my opportunity to race at Districts and try to get a berth to States. However, this year after lots of summer training and more mileage, I was able to qualify to States. My concussion made me work even harder this past season, so that I could guarantee I would qualify for the race. I found this accomplishment even more rewarding because in the end it took 2 years to accomplish this dream.

Makenna Adams

26adamsm3 — 2025-03-07 17:15:42 UTC

My freshman year I started softball. Compared to most other people who played, I had almost no experience, and they had been playing all their life. My first year was very hard. I was making mistake after mistake, and it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. Towards the end of the year, I finally started to catch the balls that came at me in the outfield. It made me feel so good, because I had missed so many before. At the end of the season, I won the award for being the most improved player, and that really made all my work worth it. Of course, I still have a lot to improve on, but every success feels a little more special from every one of those mistakes.

Luke Sokolofsky

26sokolofskyl — 2025-03-07 17:17:34 UTC

Being a part of TSA, I have been a part of numerous projects through which I have experienced the challenges of learning curves and engineering failures. These have taken the form of technological malfunctions, such as losing all of a set of perfect code to an entire robot's functioning, and having to continually correct the settings of a 3D printer in order to create any successful part. Specifically, the challenges of building a robot were quite substantial, as the code involved with this project was unlike anything that my group was familiar with, and the parts of the robot continually failed during its construction process. However, my team persevered through these challenges and end up competing successfully in the final competition, and undoubtedly made the success much more rewarding.

Jordan Nolte

2025-03-07 17:18:35 UTC

A goal that I have failed at was trying to better my self at my sport. I have played soccer for many years and I wanted to exceed, however a couple years ago my progress was almost stuck at a stand-still and I began losing motivation for my sport. Later, I decided that progress does not happen on a steady incline and that I need to work harder and preserve to keep getting better at the sport. The feeling of no progress made me work harder to achieve my goal of becoming a better soccer player.

Joyan Rai

2025-03-07 17:20:50 UTC

There have been many small goals that I have had throughout my life that definitely have failed. So, I really agree that we tend to value success a lot more once we have failed at something. One small example I could think about is academics. I try my best to get the best possible grades I can. So when I had gotten a grade that wasn't the best in my standard's in my AP Calc class I definitely felt a bit mad. I then studied a lot more and on the following quiz/test I got a much better grade. This was such a satisfying feeling, and for sure made me feel a lot more happy.