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1 Mental health Anthony Suazo 05/02/24 2 Embracing Failure In our day the pursuit of personal goals and achievements becomes common ground once we strive for development and victory. Thus, even if we work hard to achieve our ambitions every day, we will fail, which is relieved by the challenges of success. One may have been the hopelessness I felt when my life went wrong and I failed to achieve one of my inner aspirations. The goal I had set for myself was ambitious yet attainable: to cross the finish line of the halfmarathon race with a set time. From early morning runs to indoor strength training to a rigorous diet and water consumption, preparing for that event was all I thought about. Every week that has gone by has brought more of my confidence than before. It is the progress I managed to achieve and the persistence that never gave up on success that has kindled this growth. The last days of the push towards race day seemed to be filled with excitement and nervousness, which unfortunately did not let me sleep at night. I stood on the starting line, swamped by a sea of riveting participants, each with their own hope and fulfillment. The starting gun gave off its roaring sound, which symbolized the start of the race and at the same time heralded the end of months of fluency (Nassif et al., 2021). For the next several kilometers, everything was going well: I was holding a pace, following a course with great spirits, and excited people were rallying around me. But, after enjoying the ride for some hours, sleepiness started to straighten my back, and I started to have a big question mark over my head. My legs were heavy and my breath was rather difficult, and as each marker flew past me, my once quickly dwindling goal was almost in sight no more. When I reached the finish line, the sense of elation to describe it properly was nowhere to be found, but only a deep feeling of anguish replaced it. I have not succeeded in meeting that, for 3 it was beyond the time period that I had been enclosing. And in those seconds that had passed, I was trying to gasp in more air and was also steadying my unsteady legs. At the same time, I had a flood of moods of meagerness and self-doubt. Were the extra efforts due to my inability to perform? Did I put myself at risk for a rained-out trip by being overconfident in my skillset? 4 Reference Nassif, M. E., Qintar, M., Windsor, S. L., Jermyn, R., Shavelle, D. M., Tang, F., … & Kosiborod, M. N. (2021). Empagliflozin effects on pulmonary artery pressure in patients with heart failure: results from the EMBRACE-HF trial. Circulation, 143(17), 1673-1686. https:// www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.052503