The presence of stress and sweat fill the air. Student government election season is the time for the ambitious to come out and fight for a position. I only looked at the title and did not consider how much responsibility and work comes with it. I barely put any effort put into my campaign: few posters, no communication with the student body, and a poorly written speech. I was so overconfident that I was going to win the election that I did not realize how much work I needed to put in to win. My world was shaken when I found out that I had lost the election for class secretary. I felt like I was a failure not just in the election but in general.
    

Before my failed attempt at becoming a class officer, I was not involved in school extracurricular events in any capacity.  Losing the class election allowed for me to realize how much potential I have as a leader and encouraged me to be more involved in school. Instead of trying to shun the high school experience, I embraced it with open arms. I felt so much more positive and fell in love with the high school experience. As a freshman, you are told that being involved and caring about school is an absolute joke. But what a lot of people do not realize is that not caring is the real joke. As a freshman, I was a new student who came from a different county. I had no friends and I was in my bubble for the first couple months of high school. I had never felt more isolated than I did during my freshman year. It was so bad that I sat alone eating lunch on my first day of high school. I did not have any social skills whatsoever. After losing the election and being more involved, I can say that I was able to cope with the major change by helping out around school. I was able to meet people, make new friends, and even become really close with the staff. I learned how to have responsibility with staying on top of my life academic-wise and social-wise. If I did not step out of my comfort zone the way I did, I would have stayed miserable for the rest of my high school career.
    

The class election pushed me to be my very best. The transition from middle school to high school was tough enough already but once I got involved I was able to cope with the change and embrace it. All I needed was a little push: maybe failing once in a while really is not a bad thing. Failure is not what destroys you but what motivates you to do better.