Shoot Your Shot and Miss
- Keven Gao
- Jan 15, 2019
- 2 min read
In Araby, we see that the main character reaches an epiphany, but not a happy one at that. He is utterly destroyed at the end of the story when he realizes that the things he did were for nothing. This crushing feeling is probably felt by a lot of people in vastly different experiences. If we try to connect personally with the story of Araby is that the unfinished ending is actually a representation of ourselves and what we would do when we are utterly defeated. I for one have felt this before, but still, continue to live on always changing myself to not face those situations again or to better handle the situation if it arises. In around grade 5 I went to Canada’s Wonderland with a couple of friends, there at Wonderland where a lot of you may know there is a basketball 3pt contest. I saw a couple of guys do it and they only got 4 or 5 buckets in out of 15. So I told my friends that I’d win the jersey with only $5 by getting the highest points for the day. They gave me a practice shot and it went in with a swish. The satisfying sound of the net making contact with only the ball made me even more comfortable and cocky in my shot. So when the guy counted down to the buzzer I thought I was definitely gonna win the jersey and be the next Jeremy Lin - when Linsanity broke out and Carmelo was still playing - well as you hopefully may infer to what this post is about, I managed to miss all of them except a Moneyball - money balls are worth more than the normal balls - and ended up with 2 points. With nothing in my hands and my head down I walked back to my friends who were now trying to hold in their laughter. At that time I felt really embarrassed and crushed. At the same time when I finished a guy yelled: “This game is rigged”. Using that as my excuse I lived on with it, but honestly, I’m just bad at shooting the ball like Shaq at the free throw. That crushing moment didn’t last too long thankfully as we enjoyed the rest of the time on the rides. Much like the protagonist in Araby I too felt an elated feeling before the downfall, a glimpse of hope then a sudden slap to wake up. We all take these moments differently and is different for a lot of people, but the crushing moment or epiphany is one that we will never forget no matter how big or small.
Great blog! That's an important lesson to be learnt: that we won't always achieve our goals. We are bound to fail in life at some point or another, and the earlier we learn this the better, but we can't do so without failing first. The narrator from Araby had to feel like all the things he did were for nothing before understanding what love is truly about. Same for you, you had to learn that you're gonna miss a lot of shots before you can score a few. Once we learn that failure is a probability, we can start building towards becoming better or learning whatever we need to in order to achieve our goal. For example, say you are…
This was a good read, great job! I liked how you connected the story of Araby to your personal story about "missing your shot". Sometimes in life people over estamate thamselves in situations where they are bound to fail. Expecially at carnival games, they are all rigged and it is almost impossible to win those bigger games. Even though everyone knows that you most likely won't win at these games, we all still spend a lot of money on the games. They make the games look so easy yet they're very hard, once you start playing the games and you get close to winnig this is when you start spending more and more money because the excitment has taken over.…
Great blog! I liked how you related the story of Araby to a personal story because the message behind the piece of writing can be common to many. I for one have had many experiences where my idea of the truth was an illusion to it's reality. I had this experience going into a physics test. I believed, knowing I did not put my best efforts to study well, that I would do great on the test however ended up with a mark that crushed my expectations. It's hard to face the truth sometimes when the illusion made up in your head is better. I had to learn from my experinces throughout highschool that simply dreaming is never enough without…