About A Competition and A Winner

Watching Candice Glover win on American Idol brought tears to my eyes. Well, most things bring tears to my eyes these days, usually for a variety of reasons. In this case, it was an inspirational reason, a hurrah to sticking it out.

For those of you who don't watch American Idol, Candice was just named the 12th winner of the competition, and the first female winner in about 6 years.

However, that is not the crux of this post. She had auditioned for the show twice in the past, 2009 and 2011, but had not made even the top 30 spot both times. In spite of popular opinion and personal misgivings, as you can imagine, she auditioned again this year and the rest is history (I feel I must add, 'as they say').

Well, if you haven't already guessed what direction this story is taking, here's an extensive break down. Most times, we go through a lot of setbacks in achieving our dreams. There are times when it seems all our best efforts lead to failure. Like Candice, we audition, attend interviews, get contacts, send manuscripts, change our appearance, modify our behaviours, take lessons, attend seminars... the list is endless, but we never quite make the cut. It's easy to give up, to go with the flow, to have a constant fear of failure when even the thought comes up to try again.

Candice's is certainly not the only story of persistence triumphing after repeated failure; from Albert Einstein to people in our families and neighbourhood, stories abound of trying again and again until dreams were realised.

The reason, I think, why we give up is because we find it difficult to compare our circumstances with other's who have triumphed, which could be a good thing on certain levels. It is easy to believe when we face set backs that our situation is unique, and in all fairness it is, to us. I, myself, have been in situations where people asked me, trying to encourage me, to think about others who had been through similar circumstances. Several times, what I have said, at least in my mind, was, "Ding it! I don't care what others go through, all I care about is what I am going through".

So, this is a lesson for me as well. At least this justifies my tears while watching the show (I hope). It certainly won't be easy to persist; you might have close friends and family and yours truly, the mind, say 'Give it up already, you don't want to keep embarrassing yourself'.

Again, I say persist - try again and again and again and again and again... and (okay that's enough agains for now, you get the message). I should hasten to add that this trying again should not be mindless no-improvement trying again like the kind defined as insanity. It should be the persistence of someone who has used each setback to hone their craft, to perfect their skills, so that they are in a better position to succeed than they were previous times.


This season might not be your season, but the next season just might!