Reflective Essay: What Was Your Score?

There I was in the kitchen opening up the scores to my ACT. I have been waiting months to see what I got. I thought to myself, all this studying finally paid off. I remember right after we completed the test how well I thought I did, that even though this was my first time taking it, I was going to get a score no less than a thirty. My mother was in the living room reading a magazine, I was in the kitchen about to open the letter. I opened the letter and saw my score. It was a twenty… I immediately started tearing up, my mother saw me and asked me what was wrong, I did not want to answer, I just showed her the paper. She read the paper and said, “So why are you upset?” I was so angry, I immediately started to shout, telling her she had no …show more content…
As I sat in my group I heard, “What was your score? Oh, I got a 34, I could have done better. What about you? Oh, I got a 30, I’ll just retake it my score was so low!” In the inside I wanted to scream at them, I wanted to tell them, “Are you kidding! I actually studied for this and I still got an average score!” When they asked me what I got, I lied, I said I forgot my score, but I knew it was in the twenties. I was just so frustrated with myself, how could I have done so bad. Not only was my score low, it was significantly lower than my groups, I felt like an …show more content…
I realized how my mother was right, how a score does not define a person. How lucky I am to be in the situation that I am in, and how it was okay. Nobody is perfect and you have to learn to cope with failure. Nothing ever turns out how you think it should, but that is okay. In hindsight that score was a pretty eventful moment in my teenage life, it showed me how I cannot let anything, especially a test score hold me back, how nothing defines me but me. That nothing is permanent, and that you can always do better. That being “perfect” is unachievable and you should never set too high of expectations for yourself. Messing up is just a part of life and I needed to get over that. I learned that I was too hard on myself, and that at times I was overly dramatic when it came to academics and or achievements. But as a result over these past incidents I learned how to be realistic with myself and my goals, no matter how small or big they are. I still have incidents where I set to high of expectations for myself, whereas as a result I will beat myself up for not achieving what I set out too. With time I have become better with it though, when I ever I am put in that situation I just repeat back to myself everything I should be thankful for and that usually puts me back in a healthy mind