Never loose hope on things that mean something to you. Obviously, it depends on situation to situation. Some things might not be right for you and you might have to give them up. However, it is better to persevere when you know something is right for you. Don’t give up because you never know when you might get what you have always wanted.
Talking about my story, I never got a medal right up till 12th standard. Since we had to travel from place to place, I changed schools very often. There was never any concept of giving medals to students until I went to a Public School in Delhi. I never competed in sports in that school because the competition was way too much and I never ever considered taking part in sports. I had accolades pretty much from every school that I had joined before, but getting a medal was on my bucket list and something that I wasn’t able to accomplish ever. I left Delhi and went to Jabalpur. In Jabalpur, I joined St. Aloysius Sr. Sec. School. Now, well that is where I took up sports more seriously.
I was a new kid in this school and it was a boys school(almost). In my class there weren’t any girls at that time. That is besides the point. I was also a part of the basketball house team which performed terribly. Anyway, so we had two long distance running races ie. 1500 m and 3000 m respectively. Now, 1500 m race was held first. I took part in it. Somehow, my friends obviously discouraged me from having high hopes about the race. They were like you are new to this school. Once you take part in it, you will understand how difficult it is. I was like fine. I used to play sports otherwise, so I knew I had good stamina. But, I guess somewhere I did have a doubt as to whether I would win or not. The race started off and I was doing pretty well since the start. I had some doubt as to where the race would end. I made a mistake in that race and that was that I didn’t analyse the distance properly. I ended up sprinting in the end and lost my stamina about 200m before the finishing point. Had I just known that, I would have had the medal in my first race itself considering I was in 1st position about 300 m before the end point. A lot of people crossed me and I ended up at the 7th position. This was an open event so, a lot of people took part in it.
Well there were a lot of competitions which happened later. Unfortunately, I never won any medal in any of them. I was in 10th standard at that time. In 11th standard, I tried for the same events but never got through for any of them. I was pretty much loosing hope of ever winning a medal again. I felt really bad about the first time, that I was so close to winning a medal and couldn’t do it.
So, in 12th standard, I took part in 1500 m and 3000 m race again. The 1500 m race took place first and I failed miserably. The 3000 m race had was about 3 weeks later. So, I had 3 weeks to prepare for it. This was probably my last shot to get a medal in my school life. I was feeling quite disappointed over how I couldn’t win any medal so far. Nevertheless, I did go out running quite often. While jogging, I was constantly thinking about what if I don’t succeed this time. Things in my life never came easy to me. I would look at people who would not practice much and still manage to win medals. To fuel myself, I would remind myself about negative experiences in the past which would drive me to push harder etc. So, I trained for that event. The race was about to happen in the morning before the school started.
So, for some reason I was feeling quite sad for myself the night before. I was contemplating about how unlucky I had been until then. Obviously, I had nearly lost all hope about winning the race. In the past I had been missing the mark by one or two positions. I was naturally worried if I would win or not.
I got up the next day and I was wondering if I should even try for it. It was 5 am in the morning. The race was to be held at 6 am I guess. I spent the next 10 minutes roaming the room thinking what if I win and what if I don’t. But since I had practiced harder than ever before I was like ‘Man what have I been practicing for if I am not even sure if I want to run or not. So, I get ready and head to the school.
So all the athletes were ready for the race. Most of them had been constantly practicing. I had PCM so I had to focus on my studies in that year. These guys were running the whole year probably. There were only about 12 athletes, but all of them were really good and most of them had represented the school in clusters.
So, the race started off. I was doing alright in the beginning. Then a km later, I passed all the guys and had a good lead. Now, the only thing that I had to take care of was my stamina and I was literally praying for it to last till the end of the race. The guy at the 2nd position was about 100 m behind me. So, I kept running and I was getting tired. I kept counting the distance left. I was also constantly looking behind my back to see who was catching up. I was glad to know that I would win atleast the silver medal this time. That was a big thing for me. Eventually the 2nd guy caught up to me. About 200 m before the track he passed me and was able to complete the track before I did. However, I was lucky enough to be placed at the 2nd position as the 3rd person reached about 2-3 minutes later than I did.
So, this was how the race took place. Some people might think that I should have pushed for the gold medal and well they are right in a way. But at that point of time, winning any medal was priority for me. It was delightful for me to know that I was going to get the silver medal atleast(personally I prefer silver colour to gold lol). Well, during the race, I might have just settled for a silver mentally. I was looking back constantly just to ensure whether I would get a medal or not. I also did not want to exhaust myself totally that I would’ve ended up walking all the way and loosing the race. But, I am glad I was able to win it after all. The feeling of winning a medal for the first time was pretty overwhelming. It was afterall pretty much my last chance of winning a medal.
Well, unfortunately I wasn’t present the day they distributed the medals. We used to get the medals by the end of the year. So, I never got to go on the stage and receive it on the stage. I went the next day and collected it from the library. However, I was extremely happy when I received it nonetheless.
So, I mean life is pretty unpredictable. When you receive results can never really be predicted. However, I believe if you stay persistent on your goal, you will eventually achieve it. Also, remember what you really want in life. Don’t hesitate to give up on the wrong process. But don’t give up on the right thing and don’t give up on what really matters to you. Peace. Have a nice day.
