Cameron L., Oakwood High School
My Team''s Journey
In life we all have our struggles. Whether it be trying to fit in in a new place, or going for gold in an intense sport, we all face challenges on a daily basis. Sometimes, when you’re so focused on the end goal, you forget what the real challenge is.
My story starts in my friend’s house, as our team of intellects put our heads together to think of an idea for a creative team-building challenge. We’re practicing for a competition, which will be held in a few weeks. Each team has to complete two challenges; a main, pre-planned skit according to a prompt, and an on-the-spot exercise meant to test our teamwork skills.
Our main project is coming together nicely, but we always struggle slightly with the “instant” challenges, as they’re called, because everyone argues about who has the best idea. I was always so focused on figuring out a solution to the question; I never thought that the real challenge would be coming together as a team.
Challenge day comes, and my nerves are through the roof. As we walk onto the stage, I’m hit with a wall of cheers and excitement from the crowd. We run through our well-choreographed performance, and finish with a strong ending that seems to impress the judges. We won’t find out how we did until later, but I’m confident we did well enough to be in the running for the win. But as anyone with experience can tell you, the real test was yet to come.
As we head into our instant challenge, I give a silent nod to my teammates. That one nod symbolized the faith I had in our team, and that as long as we worked together, we''d prevail. We walk into the room, with nothing on our minds but the task at hand. The prompt is read, and we get straight to work. Instantly we’re hustling around and working on different aspects of the problem. Before I know it, it’s over. The judges take our presentation and walk away without a word. Now all we can do is wait.
Three hours later, we gather in a gym with hundreds of other people from across the state that have come to compete. As the announcer reads off the names of the winners from each competition, I start to worry. What if we didn’t work together well enough? What if the judges didn’t like our solution? By the time they get to our challenge we’re at peak excitement. 3rd place, not us. 2nd place, another team. Here’s the big moment. They’re about to announce 1st place…and then I hear it; our team’s name booms over the speaker. We erupt in a wave of excitement as we head to the stage.
I learned lots that day about teamwork, and that even when you’re doubtful, you should never give up. You can always accomplish your goal if you put your mind to it, and you persevere through the mishaps with courage.
