The Chord That Changed My Life by Katy(Ziyue)Zhang

There were monsters chasing me, compelling me to get the top score. Then I heard the words ,“Player number four, please enter the room.”,a teacher shouted across the hall. I snapped back to reality. I took a deep breath and walked up towards the piano. I glimpsed outside, my mom’s eyes were full of excitement. I looked up at my piano. Putting my hand on the position of the first chord. As soon as I pressed down the keys, my performance had commenced. At first it went well; all the piano keys were following my direction, but when it comes to the hard scale-run, my head went blank. A cold sweat broke off on my back. My muscle memory forces me to repeat the same measure over again. The keys are floating in my head. I panicked. By the end of the piece, I failed all the chords and completely wrecked the ending. My performance was considered a failure. I walked out of the concert venue with my head down, avoiding eye contact with everyone, including my mum.

“People all make mistakes, and mistakes are not necessarily a bad thing.” My mum patted my shoulder and said. “But what makes a person weaker than others is how you see your failures.” I thought to myself, maybe my mistake at the competition could actually teach me something. I reflected back on my performance. The mistakes I made were all due to my ways of practice. If I change my way of preparation, then I could do better next time. Slowly, I walked towards my house, and a tiny smile appeared on my face.

I believe in the value of mistakes. No one is born to be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, but
mistakes are lessons that are granted to people to transform them in diverse ways. Starting from that

point on, instead of blaming myself on everything that I have done wrong. I make mistakes as granted.

Mistakes give me time to reflect on my life while learning something new from it.  There will never be
simple mistakes in life, but there will always be lessons to learn.