As I sat in class that day and received the "A" honor roll certificate with my name on it, my view on life suddenly changed. I realized that while others could mosey along and just get by, that was not what I needed to do. Failure was not an option, I would settle for nothing less that success, and college was the goal I was setting for myself even with the many struggles that were going to come with it. Nothing inspires success more than the feeling of failure. I never quite understood what “I felt my stomach drop” meant until I received my first failing grade. I had studied so hard for that test and I still failed. I pondered on that failing grade for several days, and I just couldn’t quite let it go. When I saw the other students in my class had failed also, it just did not even seem to upset them. They acted as if they could care less about a passing grade. I know what was going through their head though, “oh this is just high school”. Receiving that failing grade made me realize that I needed to apply success in everything in my life. Even if it was “only high school”, I was not going to fail any more. If I had a careless attitude about failure in high school I was more than likely going to have a careless attitude in other aspects of my life. While failure is a trap that’s easy to fall into, I know that success would be worth working for. Studying was going to be the key to accomplishing many things in my life. I needed to get used to studying because that was going to be the way to success for the rest of high school, and then on to college. While all of the other teenagers in my class were over there talking about the party from last night, that was never really my cup of tea. I had figured out early that I cared way too much about my future to go try to impress someone at a party. I played all of the sports in high school, so I went to school at 8 a.m. and usually didn’t get home until eleven or twelve on